Marketing destination Zimbabwe through sport

ZTadious Manyepo imbabwe Tourism Authority is alive to the vast prospects created by sport and the organisation has started adopting various strategies to fully benefit from the opportunities.

Already, the Authority has taken Zimbabwe Cricket aboard with all national teams now spotting the “Visit Zimbabwe” message on their sleeves whenever they are on national duty.

The national senior side, the Chevrons are currently in Pakistan preparing for the Twenty20 series which begins this Saturday.

The team lost the One Day Internationals with Pakistan 1-2 with their consolation win coming via a spirited showing largely helped by Blessing Muzarabani on Wednesday.

Millions of television viewers across the world have been exposed to the Visit Zimbabwe campaign which was launched by President Mnangagwa in Harare weeks ago.

ZTA spokesperson Godfrey Koti said the deal is expected to aid the tourism industry.

“We are very proud of the Zimbabwe Cricket deal. We would like to see this development going places and further into marketing the destination Zimbabwe,”said Koti.

“Cricket is a sport which is so international so we are very much elated with that development. The Zimbabwe Cricket team, the Chevrons are in Pakistan at the moment and we believe they are marketing the destination Zimbabwe with their Visit Zimbabwe message on their shirt sleeves.”

Besides the cricket deal, Koti said talks with Real Betis Academy Zimbabwe are at an advanced stage with the view to partner the nursery to market destination Zimbabwe.

The football academy was launched in the country last week as a culmination of the partnership between a local sports agency Athletes Sphere Management and Spanish La Liga side Real Betis.

So big is the initiative and its operations in Zimbabwe will be led by Real Betis technical director Juan Parra who will arrive in the country next year.

The academy whose head coach is Dynamos legend Murape Murape will take players between the ages of 8 and 18 and there are huge prospects of the teams competing against European clubs.

And the ZTA has seen that as an opportunity to partner the academy and market the destination Zimbabwe.

Said Koti “Look, the Real Betis Academy is a big opportunity for us as the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. The fact that the academy will have young players gives us an opportunity to start inculcating the culture of travel among them. We want them to help preach the gospel as we believe every Zimbabwean is a marketer of the destination Zimbabwe. We want to mould ambassadors and in the long run, we know what it will do to our tourism.”