(NEWZIMBABWE) Tourism to bring in US$1.5bln: Kaseke
19/09/2013 00:00:00
by New Ziana
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has said the country can expect to earn US$1.5 billion from tourism by 2015 after successful hosting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) conference in August.
Zimbabwe and Zambia co-hosted the 20th UNWTO general assembly in Livingstone and Victoria falls towns respectively from August 24 to 29, Zimbabwean news agency New Ziana reported.
The conference was declared as having the highest attendance in the organisation's history, with 900 delegates from the media fraternity, 121 delegates from member states and 140 from all over the world, and 49 foreign ministers and 750 other delegates.
ZTA chief executive officer Karikoga Kaseke said the benefits of hosting the conference were "incalculable".
"On average it takes between one to two years to see the positive benefits of hosting such a big event, however the biggest benefit is the endorsement of Zimbabwe as a safe destination.
"We expect to see the fruits of this endorsement in 2015 when we anticipate to receive three million international tourist arrivals translated to US$1.5 billion in terms of tourism receipts," he said.
Kaseke said the UNWTO general assembly had not left the tourism sector in the country dead but "livened it up instead".
"Tourism has not died after the conference but was left more alive in the sense that the impacts of tourism are going to be positive for a long time.
"When we were bidding we looked at the costs versus the benefits not financial. Zimbabwe has now been acknowledged by the UNWTO as a safe destination meaning any conference of any sort can be held here," he added.
The UNWTO general assembly was held for the first time in southern Africa and the second time on the African continent after it was hosted by Senegal in 2007.
Labels: KARIKOGA KASEKE, TOURISM, UNWTO, ZTA
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(NEWZIMBABWE) UK, US drive spike in overseas visitors
06/09/2013 00:00:00
by Roman Moyo
ZIMBABWE recorded a 12 percent increase in tourist arrivals in the first half of 2013, with 859,995 visitors coming into the country compared to 767,393 during the same period last year.
According to figures released by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) on Thursday, the ever increasing regional trade and commerce also contributed immensely to this growth in arrivals, through the activities of business tourists, cross border traders and transiting tourists, mostly drawn from DRC, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
“The second quarter of 2013 marked the build up to the harmonised elections. Tourist arrivals usually tend to decline towards, during and after an election. Surprisingly, the elections had little effect on tourist arrivals with a few exceptions such as Botswana, Argentina, USA, Singapore, Germany, Italy and Israel whose arrivals rose in the first quarter, but, suddenly declined in the second quarter,” said ZTA.
The market share for the overseas arrivals into Zimbabwe stood at 13 percent, compared to the market share for African arrivals, at 87 percent. This share went up one percentage point this year from 12 percent in 2012.
The combined arrivals from all overseas markets rose by 20 percent this year compared to last year, on the backdrop of exceptional increases from Europe (26 percent) and Asia (60 percent) with UK, France and China specifically registering outstanding performances.
Although registering a six percent decline, the United States registered the most overseas visitors with 19,681, down from 20,860 during the same period last year.
The United Kingdom saw a 72 percent jump in visitors from 10,499 in the first half of 2012 to 18,007 this year.
The first half of this year, average hotel room occupancy levels rose by two percentage points to stand at 41percent, from 39 percent in 2012. On the other hand, the average hotel bed occupancy levels, contracted by five percentage points from 37 percent in 2012 to 32 percent this year.
According to ZTA, Harare and Masvingo recorded significant decline in occupancies and research has shown that this was largely due to reduced conferencing activities during the first half of 2013 as compared to 2012 whose whole length had constitution making activities which had spilled over from 2011.
Notable increases were recorded in Victoria Falls and Midlands along with Hwange, Nyanga and Bulawayo which had modest increases.
"Increases in Victoria Falls during the first half of the year were to a certain extent caused by the clients rescheduling their intended bookings to earlier in the year, so as to avoid the hustle and bustle connected with the UNWTO General Assembly in the second half of the year,” the ZTA noted.
Labels: TOURISM, ZTA
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Farmers ditch maize for tobacco
27/10/2011 00:00:00
by IRIN
SMALE-SCALE farmers are favouring tobacco over maize because they are paid immediately on delivery, while the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) often takes months to pay for the staple, say some small-scale farmers.
The country has suffered consistent bouts of food insecurity since 2000 after the government implemented its fast track land reform which saw thousands of white farmers displaced, often violently, to make way for landless black Zimbabweans.
Tobacco production - a major foreign currency earner - plummeted from 237 million kg in 2000 to 49 million kilograms in 2008.
Production has since recovered and the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) said 132 million kg was auctioned in 2011.
The profile of tobacco farmers has changed in the last decade. Prior to 2000, 1,500 of the then about 4,500 commercial farmers produced 97 percent of the tobacco delivered to sales floors, while other commercial farmers generally shunned maize production because of price controls - which remain - and opted for cash crops such as paprika, cut flowers and cotton, while growing yellow maize for stock feed.
Cereal production for food security before 2000 was largely the domain of small farmers who benefited from the sophisticated agricultural input system which supported commercial farmers and were able to easily source cheap fertiliser and seeds. The disruption of commercial farming activities also saw the collapse of the country’s agricultural industry.
ZTA's chief executive officer, Rodney Ambrose, told IRIN 67,000 tobacco growers - resettled on former white farmland - registered in 2011, of which only about 17,000 were considered large growers, including 300 white farmers still active in the sector, and that by and large the quality of tobacco delivered to the auction floors was “very good”.
Samuel Chizemo, a new tobacco farmer in Karoi about 150km north of Harare, told IRIN more farmers were opting to grow tobacco in place of maize, because of GMB delays in payment, although some was grown for personal consumption.
“Tobacco is a cash crop and unlike other crops which are delivered to the GMB we get paid cash on delivery,” he said and estimated he earned about US$8,000 from his tobacco crop this year and was paid promptly.
Some farmers, he said, were forced to sell the maize to third parties at a lower price than the controlled price of US$285 a ton, so it was the middlemen that profited from the grain, who could afford to wait for payment from the marketing board.
The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said in its September 2011 factsheet that about 1.68 million people would require emergency food assistance during the lean season, from January to April 2012. This was a 12 percent decline from the previous year for the same period.
Chizemo is one of 36 small-scale farmers working six hectare divisions of formerly white-owned farmland which was redistributed in 2001. They are all cultivating tobacco as contract farmers.
This year the average price of tobacco per kg was $2.73, slightly lower than the previous year of US$2.89.
Hard beginnings
Initially, Zimbabwe’s hyperinflationary environment - which was effectively ended through the scrapping of the local currency and its replacement in 2009 with the US dollar, Botswana pula and South African rand - financial difficulties, and the farmers’s inexperience of growing and curing tobacco hamstrung their first attempts in 2003.
“Besides us not having the know-how, it is a very expensive crop to grow,” Chizemo said.
Irrigation systems were also removed by the evicted farmer, which limited the area under cultivation, as the new farmers had to carry drums of water from a nearby river to ensure the crops did not wither in the early stages.
The refusal of banks to grant loans to the new farmers because of concerns over the security of land ownership saw the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) petition President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government in 2004 to permit tobacco companies to offer farmers contracts whereby the necessary inputs, such as fertilizer and chemicals, were provided ahead of the planting season.
Under the contract agreement the farmers must sell to an agreed auctioneer until they have paid the loan for the inputs and are then free to sell the surplus to whoever they choose.
New farmers were also offered advice, assisted in the paying of wage bills and in some cases supplied with food. However, it was the scrapping of the local currency, which saw tobacco's renaissance.
“Tobacco growing is making a big difference to our lives,” Thomas Gwata, 28, from the Nyazura area east of Harare, who started tobacco farming in 2006 on a formerly white-owned farm that was subdivided among 65 small farmers, who made thousands of dollars from this year’s crop.
The farmers also lack access to a curing facility.
“The farmer who took over the farm infrastructure does not allow us to use the [curing] barn as he says it’s on his land,” he told IRIN.
“He is a cellphone farmer”, a term describing new farmers who received land, but are employed elsewhere and conduct their farming activities by calling their workers on cellphones.
Gwata and his fellow small-scale farmers built their own curing barn, but it was not as efficient as the barn constructed by the former white farmer.
Tree-felling
Without a coal supplier the tobacco farmers have resorted to tree-felling to get fuel for tobacco curing. “This is causing serious deforestation but we really do not have a choice,” he said.
“We have the land but we are not benefiting enough; agriculture is the driver of our economy so government should seriously look into putting money into the sector,” said Gwata. That may not happen any time soon though as the government remains cash-strapped.
TIMB chief executive officer Andrew Matibiri said the new farmers had also yet to come to grips with the tobacco industry systems, including notification of how much of the product they intended to grow.
“Some farmers are not aware of this and just bring their crop to the already overcrowded three auction floors in Harare which were designed for 4,000 growers,” he said.
However, Matibiri said the sector was being rejuvenated.
“Besides earning the country much needed foreign currency, tobacco is now benefiting thousands of families rather than the small minority who grew it before.”
He forecast that tobacco production could grow to 350 million kg annually in three to four years - provided there was adequate financial support - thanks to demand from the European Union and China, which each purchase about 40 percent of the country's tobacco crop.
Labels: ANDREW MATIBIRI, GRAIN MARKETING BOARD ZIMBABWE, MAIZE, NEW FARMERS, TOBACCO, ZTA
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‘ZTA must promote Great Zimbabwe’
By Dyton Mupawaenda recently in Masvingo
TOURISM operators and other stakeholders in Masvingo voiced their concern to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority saying that little has been done to promote Great Zimbabwe as the country’s number one historical tourist destination.
The operators registered their dismay last week during the launch of the Sanganai Travel and Tourism Africa Travel Fair road show where many said Masvingo was being denied the respect it deserves.
Masvingo town clerk Mr Adolf Guzha said there was so much historic significance in Masvingo and described the city as home to every Zimbabwean hence the need for recognition and vigorous marketing.
"The City of Masvingo is the ‘emotional home of every Zimbabwean’ and the destination where the country’s name is derived from but the focus has not been in favour of Masvingo but on destinations like the Victoria Falls.
"We want Masvingo to be the number one destination in Zimbabwe and we are proud to say that Great Zimbabwe is the only tourist attraction that is 100 percent owned by Zimbabwe," said Mr Guzha.
He also said that the world needs to know about Great Zimbabwe and urged tourism operators in Masvingo to use the Sanganai Exhibition to profile and properly position Masvingo as a leading destination not only in Zimbabwe but also in the world.
Zimbabwe Council for Tourism board member, Mr Fredrick Kasese welcomed the gesture by ZTA to launch Sanganai in all provinces of the country saying this showed the confidence the authority had in stakeholders in the industry.
Kasese said he was also concerned about mobilising people so that there could be a remodification of the thought process about Zimbabwe.
However, Masvingo tourism stakeholders and other associated players urged ZTA to engage hoteliers in Bulawayo not to make a killing out of them by charging exorbitant accommodation rates during Sanganai Travel and Tourism Africa Travel Fair for them not to experience the same problems like they faced during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in April.
In April, cases of high levies on those attending the ZITF were reported and ZTA and the National Incomes and Pricing Commission pounced on those who were charging high rates.
The high rates were reported to have
dampened the attendance of the annual trade fair and tourism operators pleaded with ZTA to engage Bulawayo players over accommodation rates.
Mr Givemore Chidzidzi, ZTA executive director for destination marketing assured the players that there were not going to experience the problems faced by those who attended ZITF.
"We can assure you that there is not going to be that kind of problem we experienced in April when hoteliers were charging exorbitant rates and we have already talked to them.
"Sanganai being a tourism event with many international buyers and exhibitors coming we have made sure that we do not have the same kind of problem," said Mr Chidzidzi.
He also challenged Masvingo to come and support Sanganai by coming in numbers and in full force and exploit the opportunity to market Masvingo as the prime Zimbabwean destination.
Labels: GREAT ZIMBABWE, TOURISM, ZIMBABWE, ZTA
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