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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The second edition of the Wildrun Tourism Expedition will this year be held from Wednesday to Sunday in the Greater Mapungubwe Trans-frontier Conservation Area (GMTFCA), an official has said.

The GMTFCA is made up of national parks in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.

Zimbabwe’s GMTFCA programmes officer Ms Kuda Chigodo said the event was being held for the second year following a successful launch last year, which attracted 39 tourists drawn from the United States, South Africa and Botswana.

She said this year they had registered 80 tourists from different countries, though South Africa provided the majority of the participants.

Said Ms Chigodo: “During the event, the athletes will be running for approximately 30 kilometres per day in the wild, enjoying the unique flora and fauna of the GMTFCA.

“In essence, they will be running for fun under the guidance of Zimbabwe National Parks rangers. In some instances, they will be going through animal tracks. The whole idea is to promote tourism by increasing marketing and publicity of this product.

“At the same time we want to promote community-based tourism.

“The tourists will camp at the Maramani Communal Camp for the duration of the programme. The camp is managed by Beitbridge Rural District Council.

“Events like these put Beitbridge on the tourism map and encourages more investment in community tourism for the benefit of our people.”

Ms Chigodo said they had employed 13 people from Zimbabwe to help with camp set-up, catering and other logistical issues.

The Wildrun, she said, availed opportunities for businesses in the country, considering that the organisers were procuring most of their products locally.

Ms Chigodo said they had decided to set up camp in Zimbabwe so that the communities could derive maximum benefits from cultural and natural resources around them.

She said the group will enter the country from South Africa through a temporary tourism border in the Maramani communal lands.

On the following day they will run around Zimbabwe’s component of the mega-park.

“On day two they will leave the country for the Botswana component of the GMTFCA through another temporary tourism border and return on the same day,” said Ms Chigodo.

“They will tour the South African side on day three and return again to Zimbabwe and leave Zimbabwe on 14 May via the same temporary border.”

The Wildrun becomes the second largest event to be held in the GMTFCA after successful introduction of the Tour de Tuli annual tourism expedition, which attracts 350 tourists from across the globe.