ZTA not doing enough to market tourist attractions

RECENT media reports have revealed that the number of visitors or tourists visiting our country has gone down by a very big margin. This is not good for this beautiful country which is known worldwide for having many tourist attractions.

There is no doubt that Zimbabwe is one of the tourist destinations of choice in the world and it is a duty of everyone to market the country and fight to take it to where it was.

Negative publicity and the targeted sanctions have also affected this country very much because this has seen traditional visitors stop visiting the country.

I also blame the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority for failing to play its part to market some of our tourist areas.

In the turn of the new millennium, our country was being marketed and during that time we saw Zimbabwe’s best musicians teaming up together to sing a song called Welcome to Victoria Falls and that song went on to break the charts worldwide, instantly increasing the number of tourists in that year by more than double.

We are blessed as a country to have the Victoria Falls which is the seventh wonder in the world. We need to market it very well so that it can boost the number of our visitors each and every year.

We have other places such as the Mushumbi Pools, Christmas Pass, Khami Ruins, Great Zimbabwe, Inyanga Mountains and the popular muti usina zita which can help to put our country at its right position in the entire planet.

I was also shocked to hear that countries like South Africa, Namibia and Zambia were now taking advantage of that to market the Victoria Falls as if it is in their country.

I appeal to the Government to put a budget aside to revive our tourism sector.