ZIMBABWE is a great country. After going through a decade of imported political impasse, an imported sanctions regime and indeed an imported demand for Eurocentric democracy tapestries, the country has soldiered on and has now gone over the hill.

The road in the past 10 years has been bumpy, rocky, dotted with stumps, full of hairpin sharp curves and snaky as the country took its final journey to the climax of economic independence, through sustainable ownership of natural resources.

The journey to take our people to the position of being masters and shapers of their own economic destiny through indigenisation of natural resources, indeed left all our industries, including the tourism and hospitality industry, bruised and battered.

The tourism industry looked with disgust and disbelief as the United States of America, Britain and their allies put stringent travel warnings and bans, thwarting the very essence of its existence.

Like in any other set, some gullible tour operators and members of the industry shot themselves in the foot by aiding the anti-Zimbabwe mantra, intermittently posting to the rabid Western media, cooked-up stories of rampant poaching, human rights abuses and so on.

At the end, the tourism industry was brought to its knees and we cried our beloved Victoria Falls, Gonarezhou, Eastern Highlands, Matopos, Hwange, Mana Pools and Harare.

One by one, inbound tourists dropped Zimbabwe from their itinerary and the tourism industry lost business.

Recent developments in the tourism and hospitality industry have shown that Zimbabwe has gone over the hill.

Those who shot themselves in the foot felt the pain and do not want to repeat it.

There is one tourism industry in Zimbabwe and in our united approach, the industry will prosper and conquer the world.

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority must be singularly honoured for its outstanding contribution to the country’s image through the perception management programme which has seen celebrities like Joe Thomas, Kanda Bongo Man, Luciano and others come to experience and subsequently tell the true Zimbabwean story first hand.

ZTA should also be applauded for successfully organising and hosting the Pan African Investor Conference that saw the United Nations send its assistant secretary general for the World Tourism Organisation. That big man Jeffrey Lipman was here and he has fallen in love with Zimbabwe. He is also telling the story of Zimbabwe out there.

Zimbabwe is fast reclaiming its position in the world tourism marketing matrix and at this rate, the destination will soon be a must-see for tourists. Time will tell.

Our success as the tourism industry should not be determined by our skin colour.

The sense of realism tells me that in tourism marketing, promotion and development, we either swim together or we sink together as a country.

This year alone, Zimbabwe has won an array of international awards in the tourism industry, not forgetting that last year Zimbabwe entered the Politburo of the United Nations, the World Tourism Organisations.

Walter Mzembi, Karikoga Kaseke, Shingi Munyeza, Chipo Mtasa, Phillip Chinyangwa, Givemore Chidzidzi and Emmanuel Fundira, our illustrious sons and daughter who are the vanguard of this industry, should be applauded for labouring in taking back Zimbabwe to its position as “the” African destination.

With them, we are slowly, tentatively but surely climbing over the hill. The international market now feels that Zimbabwe should be reintegrated into the mainstream tourism cauldron.

There, we will be boiled and cooked together with other internationally acclaimed tourist destinations.

In January Zimbabwe won the International Award in Tourism, in Madrid, Spain, and only this week, Zimbabwe won the Africa Investor Upcoming African Tourist Destination of the Year.

Munyeza’s Africa Sun and Chiyangwa’s Native Investments were also rewarded

for their outstanding contribution to the development of the tourism industry in the country.

That we successfully hosted the Ai Pan African Tourism Investors Conference, with economic sanctions still weighing heavily against us, that our hosts had fuel and food on the table, that they slept comfortably in our hotels and lodges, and that they interacted

with our most prized possession — our good people — means we are towards the Promised Land.

Congratulations Zimbabwe, we are there!

lFeedback:isadore.guvamombe@zimpapers.co.zw

http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=15621&cat=8