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Most hotels and lodges in Victoria Falls are already fully-booked for the Sadc Summit that Zimbabwe will host mid next month.
The general period over which the resort town should record good business is from the 5th to the 20th. It will first host a meeting of the Sadc Finance Sub-Committee on August 7th and 8th, followed by the Council of Ministers Meeting on the 14th and 15th and then the summit proper on 17th and 18th. Therefore, we expect traffic to start going to Victoria Falls from our 14 neighbouring capitals around the 5th with junior officials preparing for their ministers, peaking on the eve of the summit when heads of state and government arrive and going down about August 20 when most delegates leave.

Since the July 31, 2013 harmonised elections, convincingly won by Zanu-PF and endorsed as free and fair by a majority of observers, Victoria Falls has hosted a number of high-profile international events among them the UNWTO General Assembly in August and the Routes Africa 2014 Summit last month. This has boosted the business of tourism and hospitality operators in the town.  The positive situation is continuing when Sadc leaders and their delegations meet in there next month.

Operators are happy that the summit means more money for them. Elephant Hills Hotel, a sprawling five-star facility that straddles a golf course of equal repute, has the honour of hosting the summit.

“This shows that Victoria Falls is now a destination for conferences and that is a major puller for business tourism,” said Clement Mukwasi, an industry official.

“The summit is coming after we successfully hosted UNWTO and we will continue to rally behind our government in the marketing of our country.”

A country that hosts 14 presidents and their delegations for a summit cannot be an unsafe tourism destination. That is a positive economic statement that Zimbabwe is reiterating by hosting Sadc leaders.

But, with this summit we are also looking at much more than 15 days of full hotel occupancy and the rebounding of the tourism sector.

Zimbabwe has struggled in a negative political environment over the past decade. Amid our political difficulties, it was tough convincing some among us to agree to us hosting high-level summits.

July 31, 2013, changed that. The conduct of that election was so clean and its outcome so convincing that no one can cast aspersions on it without looking ridiculous.

This Sadc Summit is a strong political statement that further consolidates the country’s return to the fold. It is the most high-level political gathering to take place in this country in many years, so it is a cause for celebration.

President Mugabe assumes the chairmanship of Sadc during the summit. During his tenure, the President would be dispensing the wisdom he has gained over the years to steer the regional bloc forward. At the same time, he would have the responsibility of chairing sessions discussing political disputes in Sadc, something that is welcome for a leader who bore the indignity of being dragged to the same sessions over the past few years by political nonentities – Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and Arthur Mutambara.

There are always a few advantages that a chairperson of any organisation enjoys through crafting the agenda of proceedings, giving them direction and so on.

Already the theme of the 34th Sadc summit, “Sadc strategy for economic transformation: leveraging the region’s diverse resources for sustainable economic and social development through beneficiation and value addition,” resonates with our national agenda.

Zimbabwe suggested the theme, which was interrogated by all in the regional bloc, among them the Sadc secretariat who saw nothing wrong with that nationalistic focus.

This is the strategic thrust that Sadc, and the entire African continent have to take, but we have to honestly acknowledge, some countries do not have the strength to claim their natural resources for sustainable socio-economic development centred on indigenous control. We still have countries on the continent, that are endowed with oil, for example, which they don’t own and have it exported as crude for a pittance, only to import it at a premium, as processed. Some countries, particularly in West Africa, are actually sitting tenants in properties that are still owned by France and probably see nothing wrong about it or are too weak to challenge the status-quo.  Zimbabwe has boldly taken on western political and economic hegemony and has by and large, won the war.

This Sadc Summit is a loud endorsement of Zimbabwe’s nationalistic politics and its pro-indigenous socio-economic agenda.