THE inaugural Victoria Falls Sports Tourism Experience will take place in Victoria Falls resort town from September 24-26 as efforts to market the country as a safe tourist destination intensify.
Disciplines on offer for the first edition include Golf, Mountain Biking, Tennis, Aerobics and a marathon that will be played under strict Covid-19 regulations.
Victoria Falls Sports Tourism Experience, the brainchild of a local sports management company, Sports Inc, in collaboration with Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), are using the event to promote sports tourism, market destination Zimbabwe and create sustainable development for marginalised communities in resort towns.
ZTA’s Head Corporate Affairs, Godfrey Koti, said they were impressed with the concept and saw it as an opportunity to market destination Zimbabwe using sport.
“We saw an opportunity to market the destination using sport. The festival will help us propel the domestic tourism drive currently underway, the ZimBho campaign,” he said.
“The Sports Tourism concept is now a great product across the globe. We believe that there is a massive opportunity for collaboration with the sport to reach critical masses further. This will allow us to position Zimbabwe as a must-visit destination for both local and international tourists,” added Koti.
Malvin Kanjere, PR and Marketing Director of Ecotourism Africa and Sports Tourism Inc, commended the collaborative effort with ZTA as he seeks to unlock value from the relationship.
“Our aim with developing the Sports Tourism Experience is to help revive domestic tourism and support the continued collaborative efforts of the government and the private sector to spur on the recovery of tourism,” Kanjere said.
“We have been fortunate to collaborate with a diverse array of partners and sponsors to make this happen because we are all focused on the same goal: enhancing domestic tourism and supporting the recovery efforts.”
Most of the countries that are making money through tourism have a vibrant domestic tourism policy. The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded policymakers to anchor their tourism on domestic markets.
Before the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, sports tourism was becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global travel industry.
