Story by Memory Chamisa
THE government is set to review the tourism pricing model as part of efforts to promote domestic tourism which has emerged as a viable tool to turn around the fortunes of the sector.
The move comes at a time when some of the packages being availed by tourism players are beyond the reach of most Zimbabweans.
Briefing the media in Harare this Monday, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Honourable Barbra Rwodzi highlighted the importance of promoting domestic tourism through affordable pricing models.
“ZTA has a mandate to market all the products in the country. Lately, we have been running with the promotion of international tourists and lacking on domestic tourism. The pricing model has also contributed significantly to people not taking domestic tourism. You find that during COVID-19 we promoted domestic tourism through ZimBho and it escalated such that people visited some of the places that had been long since neglected but when the world opened up to travel, we just lagged on domestic travel and the pricing for locals was not conducive anymore. So as the government, we are revisiting that again to ensure locals are afforded the chance to experience their country’s endowments,” said Honourable Rwodzi.
As part of promoting religious tourism, this year’s World Tourism Day commemorations set for Wednesday will be held in Mutoko at one of the country’s religious sites, Mutemwa Prayer Mountain.
“We are looking into packaging tourism into clusters, like religious tourism, and sports tourism. We have so many religious sites dotted around the country like Defe in Gokwe, Prayer Mountain in Bindura and we can have infrastructure around these,” said Minister Rwodzi
Under the theme: “Tourism and Green Investment”, the tourism industry is looking to provide significant investment opportunities, and new technologies to decarbonise the sector and to ensure climate-resilient infrastructure through adaptation solutions.
