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Herald Reporter

ZIMBABWE remains an attractive tourist destination that the travel world cannot do without, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) acting chief executive Mr Givemore Chidzidzi has said.

Speaking at the recently concluded World Travel Market (WTM) in London, Mr Chidzidzi said the interest on Zimbabwe was very high from across the globe when they package Africa in general and southern Africa in particular.

“At WTM, you have got buyers coming from Asia, coming from the Americas, the Pacific, Australia, Europe and the UK has a home ground advantage,” he said.

“Thus most of the inquiries will be coming from operators and wholesalers from within the UK. What is evident is that Zimbabwe remains a very much-sought after destination, especially following the awards that we have been receiving in the past year to two years where Zimbabwe has been billed to be a must-visit destination, one of the top 10 must-visit destinations by the likes of Lonely Planet, National Geographic, The Telegraph and so on.

“We are seeing positive responses towards that. The inquiries we have been having now for conferences, group tours or the FITs what are normally referred to as Free Independent Travellers for some doing inclusive tours (are many).”

Mr Chidzidzi said since the coming in of the Second Republic, the tourism sector had been looking up. “We have inquiries coming from all facets of tourism and obviously the interest from people who are doing social media; a lot of bloggers, a lot of photo journalists wanting now to come to Zimbabwe and even the big media houses wanting to now try and showcase Zimbabwe, is amazing,” he said.

“I can say we seem to have turned around the bend.”

Mr Chidzidzi congratulated the WTM organisers on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of one of the leading world travel shows.

“We started exhibiting at WTM and at ITB just after Independence as the major travel shows,” he said.