By: Godknows Homwe
Harare, Zimbabwe – The Covid-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity for collaboration between the public and private sectors to get tourism back on track.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority Acting Chief Executive, Givemore Chidzidzi and his team took time to meet with Peter Saungweme who was recently appointed CEO for hospitality giant African Sun Limited. The introductory meeting was led by the venerable outgoing mentor Ed Shangwa.
This comes at a time Zimbabwe is nursing wounds of distress on its tourism sector due to coronavirus.
One lockdown after another has meant that as coronavirus wreaks havoc, the tourist spots have turned into white elephants.
Precisely, Zimbabwe tourism industry has suffered the worst income losses as there are few or no tourists to talk about in the midst of lockdowns to throttle the spread of the feared disease.
However, with the advent of vaccines and efforts to curb the spread of the virus by the government, the sector is beginning to come out of the woods.
As a result this has seen Africa Sun group pledge to make provisions for collaborative efforts aimed at strengthening the tourism sector. Tourism has been identified as a critical pillar of economic development in the NDS1 and attainment of vision 2030.
Saungweme made the pledge during an introductory meeting with ZTA acting chief executive Givemore Chidzidzi.
“I am looking forward to African Sun Limited’s contribution to the recovery and growth of the tourism sector. We will work hand in hand with the ZTA to ensure that tourism scales greater heights.”
Speaking at the meeting ZTA Acting CEO Givemore Chidzidzi said,
“We would like to thank the African Sun and Ed Shangwa for the support they have rendered to the ZTA over the years. We believe that operators such as the African Sun are critical to achieving Government’s objective of a five billion dollar tourism economy. This is heavily anchored on lucrative and mutually beneficial public-private partnerships.”
“We’ve recieved tremendous support from the ZTA and I am confident that this will continue into the future.” said Shangwe.
