HARARE – Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) head of cooperate affairs Godfrey Koti is upbeat the occasion of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) next week will bring with it, positive spillovers to the country’s leisure industry.
He was speaking to ZimLive Thursday, ahead of the country’s premier trade showcase set for April 25 to 29 in its traditional home of Bulawayo.
This year’s ZITF theme is “Transformative Innovation, Global Competitiveness”.
Koti said ZTA, as the country’s tourism agent, will piggyback on the annual investment platform to market Zimbabwe as a tourism destination of choice.
“The ZTA together with the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry will be out in full force at the ZITF where we will be positioning our brand both from a Meeting, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) to the domestic tourism perspective.
“We are looking at increasing our numbers of travel within the country and those of business-based travel.
“We look forward to interacting with as many potential partners as possible.”
Koti said the ZITF shall also come as a boost, as always, to the Bulawayo economy in particular.
“We’re very excited to see the Trade Fair come to life.
“It means a lot to the accommodation, the food and beverages, business and restaurants sector. It’s a boost of sales, and that also translates to tourism.”
Koti said ZTA also aims to use the ZITF to promote business tourism.
“More importantly, is the issue of Meetings, Incentives Conferences, Exhibitions (MICE) tourism, this is a type of tourism we’re currently pushing which is business tourism.
“We recall that 13 percent of our business last year in terms of our returns came from the business based tourism.
“So, we are looking at growing that one and we can only do that if we have events such as ZITF which boost tourism.”
According to organisers, at least 600 exhibitors have registered for ZITF with over 100 being new participants.
The European Union is also set to exhibit for the first time.
Countries such as China, Angola, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, Belarus, France, Germany and Iran are among those set to form part of foreign exhibitors at the fair.
