AFTER a rigorous campaign for the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) secretary-general position, Africa’s candidate to the position, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry Dr Walter Mzembi conceded defeat to Georgia’s Zurab Pololikashvili who now takes the reins from Jordan’s Taleb Rifai.
Victory for Dr Mzembi was almost guaranteed.
He had everything going for him as an intelligent and charismatic candidate.
His loss is a blow to the nation and continent.
He was an ideal candidate, a man not afraid of hard work, confident and not easily cowed on the international scene.
The vision he presented spoke volumes to the future many African UNWTO members-states are longing for.
Even other non-voting member-countries looked forward to a future of equality in the world of tourism.
Universality, inclusivity, a reform and renewal of the UNWTO, fairness and equity were clearly not considered by the nations that did not vote for the candidate who represented the downtrodden and shortchanged of the world.
The loss by three votes to Georgia is unfortunate for all nations that are yet to benefit from their tourism products as a result of skewed polices that have seen the West benefit more from global tourism.
Emmanuel Fundira, Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe (SOAZ) president described the outcome of the vote as unfortunate.
“We have lost an opportunity and as you know, 10 years is a very long time to wait (before another election is conducted),” said Fundira.
“It is unfortunate that Europe is not prepared to have Africa as a player in global tourism.
We thought they would warm up to the unavoidable truth that Zimbabwe had shown its ability to manage as an equal partner in the way we do business as we exchange cultural values and Africa’s superior endowment in the natural treasure.
“The (tourism) experience we offer is only found in Africa and cannot be replicated elsewhere.
We are not mourning because we have achieved a lot by coming second. The ability to score first in the first round showed the world what we are capable of, even though they ended up ganging up against us by giving their votes to Georgia.”
A tourism expert, Elvis Muyambi, said Mzembi had put the country on the global map.
“Mzembi gave a good fight and redefined Zimbabwe as a key player in the global tourism economic matrix,” he said.
“However, Mzembi must now (re-)locate his manifesto in Zimbabwe and Africa since he is the Minister here and is the chair of the UNWTO Regional Commission for Africa.”
A political commentator, Yevai Muchemwa, said negative labels attached to the country by the West had resulted in Mzembi’s loss.
“Last week, Zimbabwe was described as a fragile state at the World Economic Forum 2017, which President Robert Mugabe denounced, but it makes the world not want to deal with us,” Muchemwa said.
“Such labels as ‘a fragile state’ do not give the real picture of what Zimbabwe truly offers even more the timing which was at the time of the UNWTO SG elections.
“Misconceptions about President Robert Mugabe and his leadership have seemingly made the world feel that Zimbabweans are not capable to lead and this must be changed.”
Georgia scooped 18 votes while Zimbabwe garnered 15 votes in an election which spilled into the second round following no outright winner in the first round.
First round results saw Zimbabwe with 11 votes, Georgia with eight, South Korea at seven, Brazil on four and Colombia with three.
The election campaign by Mzembi began last year and the Tourism Minister had to work hard to ensure that he came this far.
His campaigns saw the SADC and AU endorsing him as Africa’s candidate despite Seychelles’ move of going against the continent’s agreement to have Mzembi as the sole candidate.
Although Seychelles withdrew in the last minute, that, and many other incidences of violence last year reversed a good day’s work in our tourism industry.
In earlier campaigns, Mzembi had highlighted that: “Tourism cannot package and sell conflict.
“We’ve succeeded to date in repositioning Brand Zimbabwe, largely because despite national differences, they’ve not translated into public conflict to where it constitutes a security threat warranting travel advisories, which we successfully negotiated away in 2009.
“Anyone who seeks to govern one day, or form an alternative Government must invest in peace.
“We should all roundly reject violence of any shade as a means of expression of our Zimbabweaness.
“We fought for democracy to make the ballot box the theatre of change, not street fighting.
“So, anyone who inspires to govern must invest in peace, dialogue and superior ideas.
“So let’s get off the streets, exercise mutual tolerance for our diverse positions and meet in conference rooms like educated and enlightened people we are and design the Zimbabwe we want.”
It is not the first time that Zimbabwe has suffered the negative publicity as evidenced some years ago following the Land Reform Programme that the country embarked on.
That resulted in a major decline in tourist arrivals from many source markets.
It has taken aggressive marketing and rebranding of the country’s tourism industry under the theme ‘Zimbabwe – A World of Wonders’ to have this perception change.
Only last year, Sierra Leone also suffered immensely from bad publicity of the Ebola virus which ravaged part of its population while Egypt had the same fate inflicted by the Arab Spring.
Travel ban alerts were broadcast to European nationals intending to travel to these countries, resulting in a decline of the double tourism figures.
While it has taken many African countries a long time to recover from such devastating effects of the negative media reports, there is need for African countries to rise above this and find ways of cushioning themselves.
Embarking on the Land Reform Programme resulted in Zimbabwe losing a lot of foreign tourists since the white commercial farmers who had been displaced and European countries had gone around peddling lies that Zimbabwe was no longer a safe tourist destination.
It has taken massive awareness campaigns and rebranding of the tourism brand to undo the damage that was done.
As a major boost of confidence to our tourism industry, Zimbabwe and Zambia won the bid to co-host the 20th session of the UNWTO General Assembly in Victoria Falls in 2013.