Zimbabwe needs to improve infrastructure to attract tourists: survey

Zimbabwe needs to improve its tourism infrastructure and solve the problem of high pricing to make it a competitive destination in southern Africa, according to findings of a recent study whose results were released Tuesday.

According to the report by state news agency New Ziana, the Zimbabwe-Visitor Exit Survey (VES) showed that the majority of visitors coming into Zimbabwe were visiting friends and relatives (31.1 percent) while transit visitors accounted for the second largest proportion with 29.5 percent.

Visitors coming for leisure were third at 18.2 percent followed by religion, an emerging form of tourism in Zimbabwe which accounted for 5.1 percent.

The survey was carried out in 2015-16 by the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency on behalf of the Tourism Ministry. It recommended that there was need for the country to address the issue of high pricing to make Zimbabwe a competitive destination.

The survey also recommended the improvement and development of robust tourism infrastructure and continuous training of frontline police, immigration and customs officials in order to improve the reputation of Zimbabwe as a hospitable tourist destination.

The major objective of the VES was to collect information on tourism expenditure to be used in the compilation of the country's inaugural Tourism Satellite Account.

Zimbabwe received 2.1 million visitors in 2015 up from 1.2 million in 2009. The country is targeting to reach 5 million visitors bringing in 5 billion dollars in tourism revenue by 2020. Endit