Zimbabwe’s economy is struggling to recover from years of mismanagement and looting. At an event in October 2010, tourism Minister Walter Mzembi lauded the potential of the “peaceful and apolitical” tourism sector to be at the fore of this recovery.

A Mail & Guardian article in December highlighted how Zimbabwe’s economic challenges have affected the tourism industry – things like shortages, power cuts, potholes clearly make it difficult to run a business. And finding the right balance between what you charge your guests (and who, if anyone, can therefore afford to come to your destination) and what you pay your workers (and therefore how motivated and engaged they are at work) can be difficult.

But a successful tourism industry also needs tourists – and tourists, as Mzembi intimated, typically prefer peace and stability.

So factors like the “Zimbabwe Mafia” which targets cars parked at the Harare airport picking up visiting holiday makers don’t inspire confidence in would-be tourists. Similarly, events like the invasion of recreational destinations at Lake Chivero such as Kuimba Shiri on the weekend don’t send an inviting message of safety and stability. It particularly doesn’t help if the police, when called, do nothing.

If Zimbabwe values its economic recovery – which it should do, if we are ever to move out of the current bifurcated economy of impoverished majority on the one hand, and South African import dependent comprador class on the other – it needs to do more to support Zimbabweans to buy into, establish, and maintain tourism locations for a variety of local and international guests, and less to scare off would-be tourists.

This entry was posted on January 24th, 2011 at 7:41 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Governance, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.