Tourism players urged to join hands
TOURISM players in Manicaland should join forces in packaging and marketing the Eastern Highlands as a touristy destination and revive the sector’s contribution to economic development, which has weaned in recent years.
This came up during discussions at a national tourism sector strategy consultative workshop held in Mutare on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority domestic tourism manager Ms Tafadzwa Meki said Manicaland’s challenge was that most stakeholders had been trying to go it alone.
“The problem is that you have been trying to market yourselves individually,” he said. “You cannot do it alone, but you need each other. You need to package the Eastern Highlands together. Once you have packaged it, you then circulate it so that we can get it out there and lure more visitors.”
Despite having a significant number of tourist sites, the province has moved from being one of the destinations of choice to being rated a lowly fourth most visited tourist destination in the country.
According to statistics presented by ZTA executive director (domestic tourism and strategic research) Mrs Sophie Zirebwa, the province now received only a fraction of the number of tourists that used to visit.
“Eastern Highlands used to be popular with overlanders from Australia and UK, but at the moment we are not getting any of those,” she said. “Vumba is ranked fourth in terms of preferred destinations, but that is nothing to talk about because they are at eight percent at the moment, which means not so many people are visiting the region.
“South Africa used to drive a lot of visitors into the Eastern Highlands, but we have lost this market over the past five years.”
Mrs Zirebwa said Chimanimani National Park, which was once a major attraction, was struggling to attract 5 000 visitors a year, while Nyanga and Vumba were registering less than 30 000 visitors.
Mrs Zirebwa reiterated the importance of aggressive marketing of local products to increase the number of both local and international visitors.
“Mutarazi Falls is a significant place, which has really been driven by domestic markets,” she said. “A lot of locals have visited the place and said positive things about the skywalk on social media.
“If we all visit and market the site and market it digitally too, we will see an increase in leisure visitors to the falls.”
Other tourist attractions in the province include the Bridal Falls in Chimanimani, Prince of Wales View towards Vumba, Nyanga National Park, Nyanga Mountain (the tallest in Zimbabwe), as well as the Birchenough Bridge and the Hot Springs.