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Leonard Ncube in Masvingo

MASVINGO province has a huge potential to offer a basket of high adrenalin tourism activities such as gorge swing and even bungee jumping on the gorges on Mutirikwi River.
Once the second biggest man-made dam in Zimbabwe after Kariba Lake until the coming in of Tugwi Mukorsi, Lake Mutirikwi, formerly Lake Kyle, was built between 1958 and 1960 on the confluence of Mutirikwi River and other rivers where they meet in the mountains near Great Zimbabwe.

The dam, with a full capacity of 1.4 billion cubic metres of water, offloads its water into the meandering gorges that resemble those on the Zambezi River in Victoria Falls although not as deep as Africa’s 4th longest river.

At the dam wall the depth to the base is over 60 metres while the crest length of the wall is 309 metres.
The dam wall is a double-curvature concrete arch with five spillway gates.
With a discharge capacity of 1 740 m³/s, Lake Mutirikwi was built for irrigation downstream in the Lowveld in Triangle and Chiredzi where sugarcane growing is the main activity.
Only recently, construction of a hydro power electricity generation plant did begin with the coming of the Second Republic and 5MW will be produced.

Journalists from local public and private media who are on a Zimbabwe Tourism Authority sponsored Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo pre-tour visited the lake on the dam wall side to have an appreciation of the infrastructure and assess its potential as an attraction.
The lake is surely an untapped agro-tourism gem.
With hotels such as Great Zimbabwe and Lodge at the Ancient City, as well as other lodges dotted around the facility, there is great potential for investment into tourism infrastructure that can attract a huge influx of visitors.
Already locals throng the place for weekend braais, parties’ picnics, fishing, and sunset view.
Adults pay US$3 and kids US$1 to access the viewing and picnic site a short distance from the dam wall.
The bridge connects Masvingo to other areas such as Roy, Chaka, Bikita, Mutare and Harare.
Boat cruise is done upstream away from the dam wall.
A visit to the dam wall exposed a potential for investment in bungee jumping down the 63 metre wall down the spillway.
There can be gorge swing or zip line activities downstream across the gorges as the river that flows southwards towards Save River meanders through the mountains.
Already there are vendors that sell artefacts.
South Africans are the majority of foreign tourists that patronise the place.
Churches have also started visiting the lake for outings thereby also promoting religious tourism.
These is also need for investment into eateries and ablution facilities.
“After the start of electricity generation, people have started coming back to Mutirikwi after numbers had gone down due to the coming in of Tugwi Mukorsi.
“We have big crowds during weekends and public holidays. People come for braais, sunset view and breakfast. The challenge is that this place is not yet known but it is part of Great Zimbabwe and can be marketed as a full package,” said one of the workers on site.
In its 17th edition, the Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo will kick off on Thursday and end on Saturday at the Zimbabwe Exhibition Centre in Bulawayo.
The expo is an important platform for local tourism operators, especially small and medium enterprises to interact with the world to grow their businesses.
As part of the expo, ZTA brings in buyers and markets who comprise travel agents and journalists and takes them on a tour of facilities and activities to have an appreciation of the tourism resource to market domestic tourism and help promote the brand Zimbabwe initiative.
ZTA expects a bigger exciting expo this year with efforts being made to showcase the breadth and depth of Zimbabwe’s vibrant tourism industry to the world.
Around 450 local and international exhibitors are expected this year, making 8.3 percent increase from 375 in 2023.
These are drawn from airlines, tour operators, hotels, lodges, safari companies, national tourism organisations, and many more.
Sanganai/Hlanganani brings the world to Bulawayo where travel professionals, influencers and dreamers gather to discuss trends, strike deals and swap stories.
The expo provides a fantastic platform for Zimbabwe to promote its diverse tourism offerings and attract new visitors to explore our nation’s stunning natural wonders, rich cultural heritage and warm hospitality resonating with tourism clusters of health tourism, study tourism, holiday, recreation, religious, sports, business or Mice, visiting and family, wildlife and environment and township tourism, ZTA officials have said.
Zimbabwe has hosted the Expo for promoting tourism in Bulawayo which has rich heritage and cultural sites and showcase the city’s tourism potential, decentralising tourism development, leveraging Bulawayo’s strategic location, building regional tourism cooperation.
The Expo expects to create a business platform for local tourism stakeholders and international buyers, make the show attractive, identify and create synergies, raise profile of the fair, aggressively market Zimbabwe, build Zimbabwe image.
Key highlights will be the investment forum, scholastic forum, Mice Masterclass and others.
-@ncubeleon