Mugabe’s look East policy fails to attract tourist

By Violet Gonda

4 January 2005

End of year figures released by The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority have revealed a sharp decline in the tourism industry and the country’s failure to attract much needed visitors from the East.

In a statement the ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke admitted the government’s “Look East” policy to replace the country’s trade partners from the West with the Chinese market had yielded little.

The tourism figures released this week, show few visitors from the much favoured China travelled to Zimbabwe - a huge problem for the country which is in desperate need of foreign currency.

Before the political and economic crisis, Zimbabwe enjoyed more than two million tourist visitors a year.

Despite introducing two flights a week to Beijing last year and encouraging tour guides to learn Mandarin to boost tourism, the latest figures show China and Hong Kong contributed only 2 per cent of tourist arrivals in Zimbabwe from July to September last year.

The ZTA said, "A total of 336,971 tourists came into the country in the third quarter of 2005, representing a 27 per cent decrease compared with 463,471 tourists who came during the same period in 2004."

Observers have mainly blamed the failure of the country to attract tourists on political insecurity. And in spite of Zimbabwe’s poor relations with the west, most visitors are still from the United Kingdom and the USA.

Zimbabwe was hoping to attract Asian visitors following the launch of its "Look East" policy in 2003 and after receiving approved nation status from China in 2004.