I am a Zimbabweanite.
No not a Knight of the Order of Zimbabwe but more so a knight in shining armour out to promote their tourism industry ! Goes back to the day back in 1978 when sitting at the Mapopoma Bar in the Elephant Hills Hotel on a saturday afternoon, we were hit by two mortar shells from ZIPRA cardres from across the Zambezi in Zambia. Damn near lost my Pilsner in that moment ! A moment of simple anger at the intrusion made way to the entire bar asking our attackers across for a beer...... Hell, its a Saturday afternoon in Rhodesia ( the previous country name for Zimbabwe ) and we all need to get on eh ?
The early independence years were special in Zimbabwe for the travel & tourism industry. I lived in Harare from 1980 through to the end of 1982 traveling extensivily by road & plane throughout the country. The Eastern Highlands were magnificent. Time spent on lake Kariba on a fully kitted out houseboat were legendry, revisiting Victoria Falls where the same reverlers I met in 1978 did there saturday " thing ". The Great Zimbabwe evoked thoughts of the slave trade, proud people at their Monomatapa backed up with more great hospitality. As the eighties became the nineties, tourism within Zimbabwe boomed to awesome proportions. New proeprteis were built, many exceptional hospitality doyens were created ( John GREY, Roy MEIRING to name two of them ) and credited with establishing a first world hospitality industry within Zimbabwe. Along came 2000, farm invasions, hyper inflation and a government lacking in the skills and mindset to drive the economy of the bread basket of Africa and the wheels of tourism and just about every other industry fell off.
I have to say that it was not from the lack of initiative, drive and enthusiasm of the private sector during this time that there were a number of busineses that did infact thrive. Against incredible odds both politically and economically, there exsists a breed of Zimbabwean business folks who have the ability to make it work ! In tourism terms, Victoria Falls became an enclave of dedicated, sophisticated and very able owners/management teams backed up with solid and reliable staff that not only did a holding job with their properties but in many cases added new capacity, brought out new product and maintained both staff spirit and guest experience at a high level. Unfortunately, the rest of the Zimbabwean tourism industry suffered greatly. Until 2009.
This pivitol year saw the Victoria Falls Team not only add to their town offereings but also growing their influence to cover the massive Hwange National Park region, Bumi Hills on the Matusadona range of mountains just outside Kariba and through association, the capital Harare. They secured aircraft to move guests in between these destinations. They invested millions of US $ in the refurbishing and redefining of the properties at these destinations. They indicated that not only was Victoria Falls very much open for business but so are other key destinations that bring traditional Zimbabwean hospitality to bear.
To describe Zimbabwean hospitality is like trying to understand Tiger WOODS golf game, easy to see but impossible to fathom and yet close to brilliance. The people of this country are the very best in this provision. They are naturally social, they love to please and when it comes to providing an exceptional experience, well take a look at the number of inbound travelers now visiting Zimbabwe who have been before.
It is said that to experience the very best, seek out the very best. Sailing on Lake Kariba as your chef prepares dinner and canapes are served comes close to the night sky at Binga, tracking in the Hwange National Park in the company of highly experienced rangers or witnessing the Falls from your helicopter may in fact move past the best and become your moment of revelation. Come to Zimbabwe and learn to live, experience new thoughts, catch rare moments to cherish forever, just come, I would love to share her brilliance, warmth and humaness with you.
Ciao
Colin J. FRYER.
Centre Stage Travel, Cape Town, South Africa.
Email: info@cstravel.co.za
Welcome to Our Africa.....
