Story by Tafara Chikumira
Tourism players in the Midlands are pursuing strategic alliances in a move set to boost the provincial tourism industry.
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) is engaging tourism players in Midlands province to come up with meaningful synergies aimed at ensuring the government’s tourism recovery and growth plan becomes a reality.
“We recently launched the Travel Zimbabwe whereby locals are encouraged to travel to local tourism destinations within our local provinces so that the campaign should improve tourism performance and then in 2025, we have some new products to be launched. We are going to be focusing more on Gandavaroyi in Gokwe, we are focusing on new hotels being built around the province. We are also looking at new self-serving facilities coming up in Zvishavane. That altogether should help to improve our product offering and hopefully attract new markets to the province,” ZTA’s regional manager Mrs Linda Ntuli said.
Antelope Park Resort managing director Mr Malcom Smith said, “The opportunities are massive and we constantly try to strive to better ourselves and try to create a better experience for our visitors. I think with the ZTA collaboration, we can only go in one direction and that’s up.”
Government is impressed by the performance of the tourism sector in the Midlands province which saw provincial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing by 18.2 percent in 2022.
“I am grateful to President Mnangagwa for spearheading post-COVID-19 era tourism recovery and growth plan anchored by the engagement and re-engagement agenda as well as the ease of doing business approach which is putting Zimbabwe back on the global economic arena. This is evidenced by the ZimBHO campaign which is focused on promoting domestic tourism. Establishment of a cultural village in Gokwe North, religious tourism in Gokwe South (Defe), revamping wildlife conservancies notably in Gokwe South (Chirisa Game Park) and Chirumanzu districts, enshrinement & establishment of a community museum at Manjiribwe cave in Mberengwa, development of Mundi-Mataga Dam to a resort area, and development of Karogwe Gorge into a tourism product,” Midlands Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Hon Owen Ncube said.
This comes after the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry launched the Travel Zimbabwe Campaign in Mashonaland Central province with the focus on promoting domestic tourism.
