SPORTS TOURISM: HAS ZIM DONE ENOUGH?

By Evans Dakwa

Zimbabwe’s tourism industry has been on a recovery path after suffering a major dent largely due to the negative publicity from Western countries, which led to some going to the extent of giving travel warnings to their citizenry.

The recent awarding of the Best World Tourism Destination accolade to the country buy the General Assembly of the European Council and last year’s hosting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly, is testimony that the sector is on a resurgence and more is still to come.

 It also explains the optimism and confidence exhibited by Tourism Minister, Walter Mzembi in boldly declaring that his Ministry is targeting a US$ 5 billion dollar tourism economy by the year 2018,an achievable fit that however requires the exploitation to the maximum, the potential, hidden in our tourism sector, like exploring sports tourism, an area that has been given little attention in our bid to have a fully functional tourism industry that will contribute significantly to the country’s economy.

Simply defined, sports tourism refers to travel, that by and large involves either observing or participating in a sporting event leading to people staying away from their environment. Sports tourists are those people who visit a country or city to watch and or partake in sporting events like the Olympics, African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the FIFA World Cup.

The short and long term benefits of sports tourism are invaluable to any nation and if completely exploited, this aspect of tourism possess a huge potential that can single handedly affect, positively, the national economic growth. In 2006 alone, Canada realised a total of US$15 billion while Australia is documented as getting US$3 billion annually, cases that rubber stamps the huge potential that sports tourism possess.

For hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa received over 450 000 visitors to the country effectively marketing the Southern African country’s tourist destinations and improving its image which is notoriously linked to being crime infested country. People who come sporting events end up visiting places of interest in the host nation and in terms of image building that is vital for tourism as a whole, sports tourism is a proven panacea and Zimbabwe can take a leaf from that and start to nip into the potential of this part of tourism.

The socio economic benefits goes without mention, from massive job creation, infrastructure-technological development and improvement, facilitation of cultural exchange to instilling a sense of national identity, encouraging coordination between different government departments and encouraging sport at grass roots level, as witnessed after the country co-hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

For Zimbabwe, sports tourism is that niche market that has not been exploited except for few isolated cases, like the 1995 All Africa games. After suffering negative publicity, the tourism sector need sports tourism now more than ever to facilitate total recovery and the subsequent boom that the nation hopes for that will go a long way in aiding the 5 billion dollar economy that is envisaged by the tourism ministry and contribute considerably to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Tourism and sport has a symbiotic relationship as aptly identified by Minister Walter Mzembi and one hopes the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Tourism ministry and the Sports and Recreation Commission will not remain a mere document but kick start concerted efforts towards focusing on this somewhat under exploited niche to the benefit of the sector as whole and the economy at large.