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elsewhere 12 European moons make a year; that is in America, France, Britain, Mongolia and yonder. But this villager is no mathematician and will not attempt to count beyond his fingers, for, in the village they say the more a monkey climbs up a tree, the more it exposes its genitalia.
So, the arithmetic or mathematics aspect may rest in peace for now. A year is a year, fine! So, since September 27 last year, moon after moon has superseded the other and the tourism year clock is ticking towards its abrupt end on Tuesday.

Once again, it is that time of the year when sons and daughters of this villager’s beloved Zimbabwe, A World of Wonders hold with bated breath and anxiety as the evening to award excellence in the tourism and hospitality sector beckons.
Luckily, this is not September 11 but September 27.

How time flies! It is like last month when the whole tourism industry gathered in the resort town of Victoria Falls – the town of the gothic waterfall – where celebrated business tycoon, Philip Chiyangwa and Safari Tour Operator and former president of the Zimbabwe Council for Tourism Emmanuel Fundira jointly won the coveted Tourism Personality of the Year Award.
This wordsmith from the village also won a prestigious award but the village soothsayer, that ageless fountain of wisdom and knowledge, says this villager should leave the journalists’ award for the young ones, still milking on the back of their ears, and look at something bigger within the industry.
Five consecutive years of winning are no joke.

Continued contesting with boys and girls still milking on their nostrils, will send the chickens laughing throughout the village.
But this is not the full import of this installment.
Being a villager the tendency to digress is a common phenomenon in oral tradition. The point is, it has been yet another eventful year for the tourism and hospitality industry as the country continues to climb out of the dustbin where sanctions had cruelly condemned it.

Dear reader, don’t you think things really change, even villagers now know sanctions and how biting they are. It is vocabulary imposed on us by Albion.
Compared to the same time last year, things are strongly back on track for the industry, thanks to ZTA and the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry in particular, and captains of the industry in general for their sterling effort to make things work.
To some villagers in knowing, it remains unbelievable how the industry has managed, through the guidance of the authority and the ministry to turn around the fortunes, even when all odds were against the country.

Day after day, night after night and yes, in many cases the industry worked right through the night, meeting for this and that – all for the love of making this country good and the best hospitable place in the world.
One of these nights, while this villager passed through the City Centre, there was a meeting at ZTA offices that ran into mid night. Call him temperamental or workaholic, Karikoga Kaseke or KK, as he is affectionately known, is something else! He wants things to work.
This is the year when the brand, Zimbabwe a World of Wonders hit and shook the market, with rattling effects going as far afield as Brazil, Germany, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, among other places, yonder.

Yes, this is the year when a new ZTA board was announced to inject a new impetus into the industry and give direction to a multifarious array of projects that should drive Zimbabwe to its potential best.
Yes, this is the year, when Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who had undignified himself by re-introducing duty on tourism industry accessories, made a dramatic U-turn and dignified himself by scrapping the duty.
Yes, this is the year Chipo Mutasa, that sister from the other village, successfully renovated A’zambezi River Lodge and re-opened its doors in style among pomp, zest and funfair.

Yes, this is the year, Zimbabwe won a multifarious array of international accolades, all these being pointers to a job well done. Again this is the year the industry divorced its wife for five years, Miss Tourism Zimbabwe pageantry after a good marriage that rebranded everything. Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, the great country of wonders, has since the beginning of this month, been celebrating the tourist side of this country.

Special thanks goes to Minister Walter Mzembi, ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke, ZTA board chair Marah Hativagoni, ZTA chief operations officer Givemore Chidzidzi, Rainbow Tourism Group CEO Chipo Mutasa, Chiredzi conservationist, Clive Stockhil, Parks director general Vitalis Chadenga, Environment and Natural Resources Management Minister Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe Tourism Council president Tendai Madzivanyika, among others.

I could go on and on but I cannot mention everyone. These men and women did a good job for our national brand and this is yet another year, when a good job has been done. The tourism industry is great and has done a great job. For now let it blow its own trumpet. As the awards event beckons and one takes stock of the events that have taken place between the last National Tourism Awards and the one slated for the World Tourism Day in the ancient city of Masvingo, this villager can only marvel at the achievements scored courtesy of the tireless efforts by the individuals and corporate in the leisure sector.

In line with global tourist arrivals, Zimbabwe recorded a 16 percent increase in arrivals and this continued growth can only be attributed to the reverse in how Zimbabwe is perceived in various source markets, this situation has been appreciated as a universal truth and one cannot divorce it to the merits of the image transformation strategies by the tourism marking board the ZTA closely supported by its constituency.
The increase in the average hotel and lodge room occupancy rate, which has continued to rise, is yet another factor. The year 2011 has brought positive results to Zimbabwe’s tourism industry and this has been

largely argued to be in line with the earlier on projected growth in international tourist arrivals by between 4 percent and 5 percent.
The growth of tourism and reflected by the tourist arrival trends and list accommodation utilisation has been riding on the positive performance of the entire sector. In view of the sectorial achievements and continued growth of this leisure industry, one can be justified to argue that the NATA as an initiative by the tourism body are befitting to continue motivating the players managing this sector to continue doing well.

However, as we are about to gather for yet another feast, celebrating the achievements by its own, it should be borne in the achievers minds that these accolades bring with them daunting responsibilities which mainly border around, the challenge for consistency in high service delivery and the need now to diversify our product and benchmark it with international standards.

Need for government to put tourism higher on the agenda, should be reflected by adequate funding. Going forward, tourism is not politics and even villagers like me know that.
However, this villager believes that Zimbabwe’s success in reviving the tourism industry will largely depend on how the industry plays around the country’s politics, that has been underpinned by self-destruction politics.

In the village, it defies logic to continue campaigning for sanctions and at the same time call for improvement in investment and tourist arrivals. In the village this is called shooting one’s self on the foot when the journey has just started.

Yes, this was another year and another job well done.