Leonard Ncube, leonard.ncube@chronicle.co.zw
THE United Nations Tourism (UN Tourism) has dispatched a technical delegation to inspect conference and accommodation facilities in Victoria Falls as well as assess the resort city’s readiness to host the first Tourism Regional Forum on Gastronomy Forum for Africa set for July.
UN Tourism technical co-ordinator for tourism market intelligence and competitiveness, Ms Maria Soledad Gaido and Regional Department for Africa programme officer Ms Zineb Remmal, landed in Victoria Falls yesterday for a two-day visit.
They were welcomed by Tourism and Hospitality Industry permanent secretary, Dr Takaruza Munyanyiwa and were supposed to meet tourism stakeholders before touring hotels as well as sampling some leisure areas and nearby communities to check the state of village tourism.
Formerly United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the UN Tourism is the world body’s agency responsible for promotion of responsible, sustainable and universal access to tourism as a driver to economic growth.
Zimbabwe was selected to host the inaugural forum from July 26 to 28 in Victoria Falls, making the destination a leader in gastronomy.
This is in recognition of the work being done by the First Lady Dr Auxilia Mnangagwa who has been promoting the concept of gastronomy tourism from the grassroots.
The First Lady has been instrumental in advocating for gastronomy tourism through her humanitarian work by Angel of Hope Foundation locally and abroad. She has also pushed the gastronomy tourism agenda thereby helping market the country’s traditional cuisines.
Government is pursuing a new agenda of introducing new tourism activities and packages with sports, gastronomy, religious and cultural tourism being top on the agenda.
Zimbabwe was chosen to host the forum in the wake of an exceptional exhibition of the country’s culture and cuisine by a Zimbabwean delegation at a similar forum held in Spain in October 2023.
Zimbabwe received 100 scholarships from UN Tourism during the Forum in Spain, targeting Zimbabwean beneficiaries. The scholarships have all been taken up by students in culinary departments and schools across Zimbabwe. A tourism academy will also be established in Victoria Falls.
“The First Lady has been pushing gastronomy agenda and through her efforts, Zimbabwe was rewarded by being given rights to host the forum from 26 to 28 July,” said Dr Munyanyiwa.
“This is the first-ever gastronomy forum on the African continent and this is an appreciation of her efforts as she has been pushing for popularisation of gastronomy not only in Zimbabwe but in Africa.
“We are now looking at planning for the forum and this is a preliminary visit to look at the facilities that we have. We are at an advanced state in terms of preparations.”
He said the trip was all about checking facilities’ level of preparedness and see what will be inputed into the programme.
Dr Munyanyiwa said the ministry had adopted a whole of Government approach working with private sector players to prepare for the event. About 300 foreign delegates are expected for the three-day forum.
After inspecting facilities in Victoria Falls, the team will travel to Nyanga in Manicaland to attend the National Cookout Competition initiated by the First Lady as it also feeds into the gastronomy and culinary tourism concept.
Gastronomy speaks to product diversification and use of traditional foods and indigenous knowledge systems as a tourism attraction.
“So, it’s very good for the country and we have become leaders in terms of gastronomy tourism. Our facilities are very ready as we have hosted bigger conferences before. We have been working tirelessly because this is an inaugural event and it has to be perfect,” said Dr Munyanyiwa.
Ms Remmal commended Zimbabwe’s hospitality saying Zimbabwe was chosen because of the commitment of the First Lady.
“We are here for the preparation of the upcoming event, the first-ever that we are having on the continent,” she said.
“We are witnessing the highest commitment by authorities since this event is organised under the patronage of the First Lady. So, we are here to join in the preparations for this huge event as we want to make it one of the biggest.
Gastronomy is one of the priorities for Africa agenda as prepared by our member states so brand Africa is very important as the main objective is to showcase diversity in our beautiful continent and tourism value chain.”
Victoria Falls co-hosted the UN World Tourism Organisation Summit in 2013 with Livingstone in Zambia and the UN Tourism Communication Media and Tourism Training in Africa Workshop last November as well as several other world events such as UN Economic Commission for Africa Ministers of Finance early this year.
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