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Business Reporter
THE Government will continue investing more resources towards wildlife conservation so as to sustain the growth of the tourism industry, which has been hard hit by the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Tourism, Climate and Hospitality Industry, Mr Munesu Munodawafa, said this during the podcast programme “Ultimate Tourism Chat”, hosted by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA)’s corporate communications department.

Given that local tourism is largely wildlife-based, Mr Munodawafa said increased conservation efforts were the biggest win for the country’s tourism sector, as the diversity of wildlife is an attraction for local and foreign travellers.

“Zimbabwe has almost all the big game that we are looking at. The Big 5 we have and we also have the second highest elephant population in the world,” he said.

“We are in the top three in terms of cheetah and giraffe. So, we have got the product and have decided that let’s keep investing in what we have.”

Mr Munodawafa said the country has stepped up efforts in combating poaching and has succeeded in protecting its wildlife.

“We have kept protecting even our fisheries and lakes, they are intact . . . we have taken advantage of the prevailing situation to start investing in rehabilitation of roads within the national parks because we believe that is key,” he said.

While tourists enjoy the Victoria Falls when they come to Zimbabwe, Mr Munodawafa said visitors were also excited in doing game drives.

This, he said was the reason why it was critical to invest in rehabilitating road infrastructure in the country’s national parks.

“We are investing a lot in roads rehabilitation particularly in the national parks right across from Hwange, Mana Pools, Victoria Falls area to Gonarezhou. We are working and excited about what is taking shape now,” he said.

ZTA acting chief executive officer Mr Givemore Chidzidzi said during their recent tourism stakeholder engagement, there was a general agreement that the recovery of the sector was not going to be an overnight event but a process.

“This process is going to be in three phases — trying to recover the domestic market and obviously strategies and interventions have been proposed on what needs to be done in that regard.

“Then obviously, we’ll go regional and international will fall into place with with time,” he said.

As the world emerges from the Covid-19 induced lockdown, Mr Chidzidzi said ZTA anticipates massive movement of tourists visiting different destinations.

In this light, he said the authority was taking digital marketing and promotion seriously, marketing the country to rest of the world through all the virtual platforms.

Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe president Ms Winnie Chakanyuka said during their meeting with stakeholders, discussions around the recovery plan were fruitful.

“I was quite excited about the attendance from the players.

“The debate was very robust . . . the resolution that came out of the meeting was that domestic tourism will be the anchor of the recovery plan in the short to medium term and this is the space that we have control over,” she said.

Commenting on an independent crisis communications and recovery initiatives by the World Bank on tourism in Victoria Falls, the bank’s crisis communications consultant Mrs Shelley Cox said:

“Our mandate is an important one to work collaboratively to support the tourism sector here in Victoria Falls.

“The objective of the initiative is to represent the voice of all industry stakeholders in Victoria Falls coming and working together with the Ministry of Tourism, and ZTA to build confidence in Victoria Falls by providing verified information to external audience around the preparedness and response of the destination to Covid-19 pandemic.”

Mrs Cox said the economic crisis brought by Covid-19 had crippled the tourism sector in Victoria Falls and there has been a huge amount of collaborative work to ensure the destination is well positioned for recovery.