THE prime tourism city of Victoria Falls has partnered with Cape Town city in South Africa, as the two tourism destinations seek to find ways of collectively marketing their products.
The partnership was signed in Victoria Falls Friday afternoon, the Global Tourism Resilience
Day, at the official launch of the ‘We are Victoria Falls Initiative’.
Cape Town and Victoria Falls are prime destinations in Southern Africa and the twinning arrangement is the first in the continent by any destination on the tourism front.
As Victoria Falls officially launched the “We are Victora Falls initiative’, Cape Town has been having the campaign dubbed Cape Town Tourism for the past 44 years and hope to share notes and help grow both destinations.
Both boats of two of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World-the Victora Falls and Table Mountain which are massive draw cards for tourism.
The We are Victoria Falls Initiative is an independent public-private crisis communication and recovery strategy mandated by the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality industry and supported
by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation to represent their community of Victoria Falls during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was initiated at the height of Covid-19 with the idea of having reliable up to date information on the destination management of the pandemic, collect and disseminate information on external trade sentiment to aid preparedness and response among other things.
A destination board chaired by tourism executive Mrs Barbara Murasiranwa-Hughes was set up recently and has already set the ball rolling with the launch of the Destination Management Partnership with the City of Cape Town.
Speaking at the event, Mrs Murasiranwa-Hughes
“When we decided to form this destination management partnership we looked around who had done that because we did not want to reinvest the wheel. So we found that Cape Town has 44 years and really felt
that it was going to be a good benchmarking city for us to work with,” she said.
Mrs Murasiranwa-Hughes said there will be immerse benefits emanating from cooperating in marketing the two destinations, increase tourist arrivals, combine packaging efforts among other benefits.
She said the idea is to foster coordination by every stakeholder.
Victora Falls is set to be the biggest beneficiary of the twinning arrangement as the destination will get information on source markets freely, ride on Cape Town established market and improve accessibility
through the South African city wide aviation connectivity.
Cape Town Tourism chief marketing officer Ms Leigh Dawber said it is critical for African destinations should partner to bring international tourists and create prosperity from that.
“So Victora Falls has launched the We are Victora Falls Destination Management partnership and as Cape Town Tourism we have signed a joint marketing partnership agreement with them so we can market together
these two beautiful destinations which both have the natural wonder of the world being Victoria Falls and Table Mountain.
“We look forward to supporting the growth of the We are Victoria Falls Destination Management partnership which starting from today,” she said.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive officer Ms Winnie Muchanyuka said the partnership is realisation for the need to jointly sell the destination.
“This initiative talks to the source markets that we both have in common with Cape Town. Most tourists have Victoria Falls and Cape Town in their itinerary so this will help destination Victoria Falls,” she said.
The Airports Company of Zimbabwe will facilitate access between the two destinations.
Currently two airlines Kenyan Airways and SA Airlink fly between the two cities.
ACZ chief executive Mr Tawanda Gusha said the collaboration will extend to airlines as both destinations will target new airlines together.
“Over the years we have been doing it individually in silos but now we are collaborating which will definitely bring positive results to the destination Victoria Falls,” he said. – Chronicle
