The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) is working on a programme, “Know your Zimbabwe” campaign aimed at improving the country’s domestic tourism.
ZTA chief operating officer Mr Givemore Chidzidzi said the authority had begun planning a number of initiatives aimed at encouraging locals to visit the country’s natural and cultural sites.
He said the programme was being spearheaded by the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry in recognition of President Mugabe’s call to ensure that locals were accorded flexible packages to visit the country’s landmarks.
President Mugabe made this call after the country was awarded an accolade for the 2014 Best Tourism Destination Award by the European Tourism and Trade Council (ETTC) two months ago.
Zimbabwe was awarded two awards by the ETTC, a private Bucharest, Romania-based organisation with interest in tourism. It brings together tourism-related organisations from 27 European countries and it is not affiliated to the European Union.
“During the ceremony the President acknowledged that as a country we are receiving numerous tourism accolades while the majority of our people were not aware of our natural icons and urged the Ministry to come up with a ‘Know your Zimbabwe’ campaign.
“We are in the process of rolling out programmes for that campaign and it will entail creating awareness as well as instilling a culture of travelling within our borders as well as providing products that are suitable and appealing to the local market,” Mr Chidzidzi said.
He said ZTA had over the years embarked on a number of domestic tourism promotional programmes, of note being the “Tourism like charity begins at home”.
ZTA has also tried a variety of strategies aimed at increasing the number of Zimbabweans visiting local tourist sites. Some of the proposed ideas include group holidays, improving access to loans from banks on holiday packages and encouraging school trips.
However, economic experts say the domestic tourism market has all but malformed due to increasing poverty and a shrinking of disposable income.
According to Zimstat, the overall poverty rate in the country has reached a record high of 63 percent with Zimbabwe’s estimated population of 12,9 million vastly classified as poor and 16 percent living in extreme poverty.
