LET'S THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX FOR GROWTH:
ZIMBABWE is a tourist destination of repute and can hold its own as a tourist attraction but Zimbabweans are their worst enemies and have been soiling the tourism tapestry on their own. From 2005 when I launched this column - Tourism Matrix - I went into the cockpit of things in the tourism and hospitality industry. In 2017, I decided to quit to give youngsters space to write on tourism. I made a mistake, because unbeknown to me a log thrown into the river does not become a crocodile. I am back and back full time to take my position.
Suffice to say, I will not waste time rumbling about how I scooped virtually every award in the industry, but that this column is back to give the industry a new depth and trajectory, a new sense of doing business and tourism.
The disclaimer is that this time around we are going to stare each other in the face and say what is good is a good and what is bad is a bad.
Nature’s inexhaustible generosity endowed Zimbabwe with a buffet of flora and fauna, splendid geomorphology and intelligent people. This makes Zimbabwe a wonderful tourist destination but any measure and standard.
What had destroyed tourism in Zimbabwe are its people. We do not conduct ourselves as business people. We overprice everything. Our tax regime is unpalatable. It makes the ease of doing business a mockery. It makes it a pie in the sky.
To think that we have an industry that does not have a one stop shop for mandatory statutory payments and that one has to queue to pay Zimbabwe Tourism Authority’s tourism levy, liquor licence, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, Zimbabwe National Water Authority, Zimbabwe Music Rights Association, ZBC etc for one business entity does not sound like we are thinking. It is high time we apply a thought process. Tourism is business and investors decide where to invest. They don’t just come.
We surely should have a one stop licensing office that does not waste out time. How do we attract investors when we have this coterie of licences?
I was recently shocked when Zimura for instance, were measuring a bar’s floor space as a way of counting chairs revellers occupy and charge per chair. My foot. This is business nonsense. Why allow this? When are we going to start thinking?
Our visa regime should speak to our tourist source markets. Our visa regime should speak to our tourism wholesalers. It must not be self-serving. We really have to follow the numbers. We need the numbers and we ease their coming. To date, there is a lot of confusion in the tourism industry as to how the ease of doing business or the new national tourism policy, dovetails with the requirements of tourist source markets. It is not enough to have the best attractions like Victoria Falls or Hwange or Great Zimbabwe. Those attractions need to be manipulated through a thought process. There must be a deliberate application of a thought process if we are to reap the rewards. The time to think is now. Let us bring a new trajectory, taking advantage of the new political dispensation.