Zimbabwe haunted by negative destination tag – Kaseke

By Byron Mutingwende

HARARE – Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) Chief Executive Karikoga Kaseke has said the country is losing potential revenue because of the negative tourism destination tag that haunts the sector.

Kaseke was speaking during the tourism sector’s presentation to the ministry of finance on how to plug leakages and incentivize tourism to improve revenue generation at the Meikles Hotel last Friday.

“The negative destination brand has continued haunting the nation. During the period 1980 – 1999 arrivals average growth rate was 14% per annum. Had this growth been sustained, over 14 million arrivals would have been realised in the year 2013,” Kaseke said.

Kaseke added that the country recorded a 2% growth in tourist arrivals from 1 794 230 in 2012 to 1 832 570 in 2013 which was a far cry from their expectations as a sector.

“Though arrivals increased marginally, they are yet to reach the peak period of tourism, the year 1999. The majority of these arrivals are low value tourists from Mainland Africa (1 570 799).”

Kaseke added that the global top spenders were China, Germany, the United States and United Kingdom.

Players in the sector said a combination of factors were hampering tourism and the country would lose in revenue generation if some of the negative policies remain in place.

“I am confident we can grow our tourism industry to the goal of $5billion tourism economy by 2018 if we change some of the policies in place. I would like to applaud the Immigration department for the introduction of the e-Visa for the Indian and Chinese nationals. We however need to re-look at the visa regime for Category C countries like Turkey and move them to Category B,” said Blessing Munyenyiwa from Love for Africa.

Nkosilathi Sibanda said revenue generation could be improved by improving the accessibility of world-renowned tourism destinations like Kariba and Victoria Falls particularly through slashing the exorbitant air fares charged by local and foreign airlines.

“The state of the roads in the country is deplorable. The police manning roadblocks on the country’s major highways are also very rude to motorists. In the end the foreign tourists prefer to get to Kariba or Victoria Falls via Livingstone or Botswana and potential revenue is lost in the process,” Sibanda said.

Tourism minister Walter Mzembi also called for the need to harmonise prices charged separately by Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, National Social Security Authorities and local authorities in order to reduce the burden of overpricing tourists.

Mzembi added that the adoption of the open skies policy was long overdue and hailed the relaxation of the Exchange Control Policy and use of plastic money for easy transactions as some of the ways that will impact positively on improving the country’s image as a tourist destination.