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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
EIGHTY tourists have registered for the second edition of the Wildrun Tourism Expedition to be held this week (May 10-14) in the Greater Mapungubwe Trans-frontier Conservation area (GMTFCA).

The GMTFCA is made up of national parks from Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.

Zimbabwe’s GMTCA programme officer, Ms Kuda Chigodo said the event was being held for the second year running following a successful launch last year, which attracted 39 tourists drawn from the United States, South Africa and Botswana.

She said this year they had registered 80 tourists from different countries, though South Africa provided the biggest number of participants.

Said Ms Chigodo: “During the event the athletes will be running for approximately 30km per day in the wild enjoying the unique flora and fauna of GMFTCA.

“In essence they will be running for fun under the guidance of Zimbabwe National Parks rangers. In some instances they will be going through animal tracks.”

Ms Chigodo said the idea behind the programme was to promote tourism by increasing marketing and publicity of the product while at the same time promoting community based tourism.

She said tourists will camp at the Maramani Communal Camp for the duration of the programme. The camp is managed by Beitbridge Rural district council.

“Events like this put Beitbridge on the tourism map and encourage more investment in community tourism for the benefit of our people,” said Ms Chigodo.

She added that preparations were at an advanced stage and that the pre camp setup team was already on site.

Ms Chigodo said they had employed 13 people from Zimbabwe to help with camp setup, catering and other logistical issues.

The Wildrun, she said, also availed opportunities for businesses in the country considering that the organisers were procuring most of their products locally.

“Wild-runner is the brain child of this product and we are working together in making the event a memorable success. We are building on last year’s experience and are very confident that this year’s event will be bigger and better,” said Ms Chigodo.

She said they had decided to set camp in Zimbabwe so that the community could derive maximum benefits from cultural and natural resources around them.

Ms Chigodo said the group will enter the country from South Africa through a temporary tourism border in the Maramani Communal lands.

She said on the following day they will run around Zimbabwe’s component of the mega-park.

“On day two they will leave the country for the Botswana component of the GMFCTA through another temporary tourism border and return on the same day.

“They will tour the South African side on Day three and return again to Zimbabwe and leave Zimbabwe on 14 May via the same temporary border,” she said.

During the inaugural event last year, Boundless Southern Africa donated an assortment of camping equipment worth R327 0000 to Maramani Tourism camp.

The Wildrun becomes the second largest event to be held in the GMTFCA after successful introduction of the Tour de Tuli annual tourism expedition, which attracts 350 tourists from across the globe.

In the Tour de Tuli, tourists mainly on mountain bikes will be cycling around the mega-park for three days covering a distance of 350km in four days.