Tourism sector must beef up destination packaging, marketing efforts
ATTRACTING more visitor numbers is the end game in the tourism industry as the sector focuses on post Covid-19 recovery. Like its global peers, Zimbabwe has made progress in terms of controlling new infections while positive strides are being recorded in the vaccination front.
This has broader significance on two key aspects.
The first one is the reprieve for businesses and private organisations to return to normal operations, which is critical for the good of the entire economy, which has suffered heavily under tight Covid-19 lockdown regulations.
The second one is the anticipated resurgence in global travel, which will likely see the tourism sector regaining its historic momentum.
This is a subject of intense interest for Zimbabwe given that tourism is one of the top economic sectors in terms of employment creation, as well as contribution to foreign currency earnings.
No doubt, the pandemic has inflicted a crippling wound to the local tourism sector, but now is the time to pick up the broken pieces and focus on consolidating future gains.
What is clear though, based on expert insights and practical happenings on the ground so far, is that the pandemic has totally redefined the way business is done.
Creativity and innovation possess the answer to being unique and distinct in the global market hence our local tourism players would need to fully embrace this so as to withstand fierce competition with regional and international players.
Zimbabwe's participation at the on-going Expo 2020 Dubai, hosted by United Arab Emirates (UAE) under the Covid-19 environment, has offered the country grand opportunity to assess best tourism business trends, which could be embraced for the benefit of the local players.
Dubai City alone is one of the world's leading tourism destinations and tourism is a major source of revenue. The destination has set an ambitious tourism strategy to lure 25 million visitors a year by 2025 and they are aggressive on that path.
Since commencement of the expo last October, visitor numbers to Dubai had breached 17 million as of last week and the inflows are intensifying as the world exhibition event draws to an end this month.
Renewed product or service design, attractive packaging and increased use of multi-media platforms and digital technologies are at the centre of Dubai's excellent marketing strategy.
The Emiratis are highly imaginative about their tourism future and seem to have mastered the art of positioning themselves for any possibilities of keeping the global visitor close by and making money in the process.
No wonder, despite being situated in a desert area, they have been able to provide the impossible through designing artificial water falls, artificial snow scenarios and are now moving towards establishing a desert safari concept. Dubai has also established what it calls a “Museum of the Future”, a magnificent facility “devoted to futuristic technology and sustainable manufacturing solutions”.
Such disruptive creativity and deliberate strategy coupled with robust marketing or packaging, as well as harmonised social services and an efficient transportation system, should challenge the local innovators and tourism players.
The advantage with Zimbabwe is that it has most of these unique and wonderful heritage attractions in their natural form and could derive more earnings if the country attracts adequate numbers. This is critical at a time the sector is focused on achieving a US$5 billion milestone by 2025, a key target under the Government's drive towards creating an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
“Zimbabwe has everything that tourists can desire. But what is needed is aggressive destination marketing and packaging as global tourists that have money are always looking for something new,” says Dipesh Samji a Zimbabwean tourism consultant based in Dubai.
“They are interested in different products, natural beauty and original cultures that they can experience. As Zimbabwe we have everything that they are looking for but the problem is that we are not marketing ourselves enough to them.
“Our marketing needs to go to the right place, to the right people and target the right segments.”
Samji commended the country for participating at the world Expo 2020 Dubai and showcasing its products. Surprisingly, he noted that some of the visitors to the country's pavilion indicated that they have not heard about Zimbabwe's attractiveness and to an extent did not know where the country is located.
“As a country we need to focus more on the youth and educating them, over and above the formal education system, on those critical segments that connect them with the modern world such as technology and digital media skills,” said Samji.
Zimbabwe is not the only one with diverse wildlife species and natural heritage sites but competes for clients on this business with neighbours such as Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and so on.
The local players must play their cards so well including taping into any synergies, which dictates that instead of merely competing, the sector could partner with counterparts in the region to derive mutual benefits.
The Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) initiative, which is anchored on sustainable conservation harmonises tourism operations at the convergence of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Angola borders.
The model has been lauded for being its regionally integrated sustainability pitch and is poised to assist in tourism recovery on a regional scale but more marketing efforts are required to boost traffic into this segment, which enjoys a uni-visa facility.
Zimbabwe should also ride on the growing interest by international airlines to service key destinations. Already the Emirates and Qatar airways have registered their presence while the German owned Eurowings is set to commence flights this month.
“This should excite our industry to do more marketing and we also need to invest more on developing attractive tour packages so that more people can come and experience the beauty of Zimbabwe,” said Samji.
The recent Tourism and Infrastructure Finance Conference hosted by Zimbabwe in Dubai, has also succeeded in drawing investor attention to several infrastructure projects in the country that could support a thriving tourism sector.
As part of the outcomes, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has engaged 10 travel agencies and three media houses from the UAE, who are set to visit the country soon to familiarise with the destination and assist in marketing Zimbabwe, especially to the Middle East region.
“The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority gave away familiarisation tour vouchers to 10 travel agencies that are supposed to come into the country to experience and explore what we mean when we say #ZimBHo, meet in Zimbabwe and visit Zimbabwe and of course we are taking this to another level,” said ZTA spokesperson Godfrey Koti.
“The expenses will be paid by the ZTA and this is an idea to try and get these agencies to familiarise with the destination and get to know more about Zimbabwe.
“We had 170 people who attended our conference as well as 27 potential investors that expect to come to Zimbabwe and of course we had 25 exhibitors that came to sell Zimbabwe at this conference.”
The question of product tourism pricing as always came to the fore during the conference and the dialogue pointed to the need to create demand-driven packages, which will stimulate domestic tourism, in particular and ensure competitive costs.
This will also require serious marketing and packaging so that locals develop the culture of travelling within their country and making savings for holiday-making.
Art and culture products have also proved to be biggest visitor attractions at Expo 2020 Dubai, which has helped showcase Zimbabwe's uniqueness. These blend so well with the tourism sector and need to mainstreamed in the broader destination marketing and packaging efforts.
The tourism sector is regarded as a low-hanging fruit for Zimbabwe and many African states. Should its opportunities be fully harnessed, the sector has the potential to also assist the country and the region to transform strongly and be in a position to meet the United Nations' Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.