Zimbabwe’s tourism growth is beginning to expose accommodation shortages in Masvingo, with the government planning fresh tourism and entertainment activities in the city to draw investment into hotels, lodges and other hospitality facilities.
Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Barbara Rwodzi made the remarks at the Masvingo International Airport, where she was receiving international buyers who had flown in on an Air Zimbabwe flight to attend the Sanganai/Hlanganani Zimbabwe Tourism Expo. The delegation included buyers from Russia, Bangladesh, Australia and Pakistan among more .
Rwodzi told the press that the shortage of accommodation being felt during the expo demonstrated the need to deliberately build demand that would spur investment in the province’s hospitality sector.
“Starting from last night, we are running short of accommodation,” she remarked, adding that the situation gave government and private-sector players an opening to expand the city’s lodging capacity.
She revealed that the government intended to introduce an annual September sports tourism carnival in Masvingo to generate steady demand for accommodation and other tourism services throughout the year. “You need to be bringing in a number of activities into the city of Masvingo, so that there will be a demand,” she explained, describing plans to blend sports tourism with entertainment and gastronomy to keep visitors coming year-round.
The minister stressed that the government’s approach required every new tourism project to show improvement on the previous year, noting that lessons drawn from events such as Sanganai were feeding into better future programmes. She added that infrastructure being developed in Masvingo was meant to support this growing activity and draw visitors from within Zimbabwe, the region and further afield.
Minister Rwodzi observed that Zimbabwe was well placed to benefit from increased regional travel and opportunities linked to the African Continental Free Trade Area, with Masvingo potentially serving as a transit point for travellers moving along the regional corridor.
Turning to television licensing, the minister disclosed that government had settled a long-running dispute over the requirement for individual licences on television sets in hotels and other accommodation facilities. “Accomodation facilities are no longer paying licenses for an individual television station in a room, but they are now collectively paying for that,” she told the journalists, explaining that operators running hundreds of sets had raised concerns over the burden this placed on their businesses.
She noted that working with the Ministry of Information and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, the government had introduced a collective licensing arrangement for the hospitality sector, designed to ease regulatory and financial pressure on operators, though its rollout was still being finalised.
On sector performance, Rwodzi pointed out that the ministry was studying different tourism subsectors, including sports and religious tourism, to determine which were generating the greatest economic value. “Football matches, for example, attract visitors from other cities,” she noted, “therefore there is more that is needed to be done to encourage such travellers to stay overnight in Masvingo rather than heading home right after the final whistle.”
The minister emphasised that the broader goal was to lift the tourism’s contribution to Zimbabwe’s economy in a way that benefits communities and businesses alike. She also welcomed the international recognition Zimbabwe’s tourism sector has received, describing it as confirmation “that the country’s tourism initiatives were contributing to inclusive economic growth.”
The Sanganai/Hlanganani Zimbabwe Tourism Expo and the accompanying tourism, gastronomy, sports and entertainment programme are under way in Masvingo.
