Zimbabwe wants you!

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Date: 13 October 2006

Author: Reuters

Zimbabwe opened an international tourism fair on Thursday to promote its once booming resorts, lying largely deserted over President Robert Mugabe's controversial politics.

The southern African country's tourism revenues have collapsed in the face of a crumbling economy, chronic fuel shortages and Mugabe's standoff with Britain and other Western nations that oppose his policies.

Annual income from the industry has plunged by more than 70 percent in the past six years from $340 million to $98 million, as Western tourists, generally the big spenders in Africa, chose to stay away from Zimbabwe and its troubles.

Although the country has some of the continent's most popular destinations, including the famous Victoria Falls resort, promoters have found Zimbabwe a hard sell overseas.

The government-sponsored Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) initially responded to the dwindling numbers of Western tourists by trying to cultivate new markets in Asia.

But on Thursday, it launched a new campaign to revive the industry, organising an international expo where it hosted more than 250 travel promoters invited from both West and East.

"What we are doing now is to showcase our products and demonstrate to our old traditional markets and to the new markets that we are looking at in Asia, in countries like China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, that the country is peaceful, and that we have first-class products," ZTA director Karikoga Kaseke said.

The agency says the tourism sector is a victim of bad publicity in the West, where Mugabe's controversial seizures of white-owned farms for distribution to landless blacks have made him a pariah figure.

"Ours is a country that has been battered, bruised and buffeted by the severe winds of negative publicity," Kaseke said. "We are saying that the so-called political crisis ... has never affected the tourism industry and that Zimbabwe is still extending its traditional hospitality to those who wish to visit."

Zimbabwe's co-vice president Joyce Mujuru who officially opened the fair said the land reforms were necessary to correct colonialism land ownership imbalances. Mujuru told visitors: "You are welcome, you are safe, you are secure and you are free to move around in Zimbabwe."

Zimbabwe is home to some of Africa's largest game reserves, but local conservation activists say some of the animal species are at risk from cross-border trophy hunters as well as rampant poaching by people struggling with hunger and rising poverty.

Dozens of tour operators from Zimbabwe and neighbouring African countries are exhibiting at the fair.

Analysts say Zimbabwe's tourism sector, characterised by deserted resorts and hotels, where occupancy rate is averaging 30 percent, can only recover in a calmer political environment.

"The (present) efforts are commendable, but the whole economy, and that includes tourism, is a victim of our politics and we have to attend to that," said economist John Robertson.

Reuters