Z10 February 9-15 2017

ZIMBABWE will next month advance its mar-keting tentacles in the European market when it attends the World’s leading Tourism Fair, International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Germany.

The global tourism exposition will open its doors to the world, as destinations are set to be exchanging tourism business opportuni-ties. Zimbabwe will be among 185 countries that registered to participate at this global platform with the aim of generating business leads and marketing the destination to the German and the European markets at large. The fair will take place from March 8 to 12 2017 in Berlin, Germany.

According to the Zimbabwe Tourism Au-thority (ZTA) executive director destination marketing, Jefferys Manjengwa, at least 11 operators from Zimbabwe will be attending the travel show.

“We are excited to be attending this tour-ism fair and our operators are very keen to position Zimbabwe as a must visit tourism destination.

“Our tourism is poised for growth given an array of positive developments in the coun-try key among them the recently developed Victoria Falls International Airport and vari-ous investment opportunities in the tourism industry,” said Manjengwa.

He added that the renewed interest from a number of airlines to ply the Victoria Falls direct route is encouraging as this promotes destination access. Already it is confirmed that Ethiopian Airlines and RwandAir will have their inaugural flights to Victoria Falls on March 26 and Harare on April 1 2017 re-spectively.

Commenting on Zimbabwe’s participation at the ITB and other related International travel fairs, the ZTA chief executive, Karikoga Kaseke, emphasised the need for continuous investment in aggressive marketing if the sec-tor is to achieve the projected growth rate. Kaseke also commended the participating op-erators from Zimbabwe particularly on their resilience and drive to promote the destina-tion and satisfying the renewed interest from the Germany market.

Germany is arguably the world’s largest outbound travel market with 76 million trav-ellers each year and over half the German population takes at least one holiday abroad each year.

According to latest data from IPK Inter-national, Germany remains the ‘world travel champion’ as the worldwide number one out-bound market for international tourism, fol-lowed by the USA and the UK.

Also, Germany is ranked third in terms of tourism expenditure, with a total of US$92,2 billion, after China and the United States. The market is known for high spending averaging about US$2 100 per person per trip.

Germany contributes 18 percent of Euro-pean arrivals into Zimbabwe and ranks third after the United States of America and UK, contributing 26 355 arrivals recorded in year 2015, a far drop from the 76 000 arrivals at-tained in 1999, which was Zimbabwe’s tour-ism peak.

The tourism industry players that have so far confirmed participation at ITB Berlin are:

1. Wilderness Safaris2. Zambezi Cruise Safaris 3. Musangano Lodge 4. Fivebulls Travel 5. Sikiliza Adventures6. Rainbow Tourism Group7. African Sun Hotels 8. Camp Amalinda9. Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe 10. Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Manage-

ment Authority 11. Zimbabwe Travel Info ITB remains the world’s largest and leading

must attend meeting place attracting more than 185 countries, 850 qualified hosted top buyers, 10 000 exhibitors, 23 000 convention visitors and more than 165 000 private and public visitors alike.

Over and above being a global travel fair, ITB also presents the participants an oppor-tunity to implicitly engage the Germany mar-ket in investment and destination promotion.

Zim takes aim at the European tourism market

ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke. Rainbow Tourism Group will be partici-pating at the at ITB Berlin 2017.

Z11February 9-15 2017 Zimbabwe a world of wonders sUPPlemenT

ZIMBABWE and Ethiopian Airlines will this year engage in various joint marketing initiatives aimed at promoting Zimbabwe tourism in the Spanish and Portuguese market.

This was revealed by the Ethiopian Airlines area manager for Spain and Portugal Alemu Bekele during the official launch of the Victoria Falls – Madrid route in Spain.

“We are excited to be working with progres-sive destinations like Zimbabwe through the ZTA. We see a lot of potential in the Madrid-Victoria Falls route so it is our undertaking to nurture and develop this route together with them. We are planning on having roadshows and particularly in Spain and Portugal”, said Bekele.

Speaking at the same occasion the chief ex-ecutive of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority Ka-rikoga Kaseke expressed gratification at how the Ethiopian Airlines has continued to respond to the aspirations of Zimbabwe tourism.

“The Ethiopian Airlines have consistently sup-ported us and always been forthcoming to our calls for close collaboration in the areas of joint marketing and promotion. We are optimistic that close cooperation will yield more results for mu-tual benefit. So this year we will fully implement

LEGACY Lifestyle last week launched their highly successful rewards programme in Zimbabwe, at a ceremony held at Monomotapa Hotel in Harare.

Legacy Lifestyle started in 2010 and it is Africa’s leading independent rewards programme, with in excess of 660 000 members and over 250 Life-style brand partners.

The programme offers members the ability to earn and redeem rewards at retail; merchants, using their mobile phone number as their mem-bership number.

The Legacy Lifestyle Programme covers a full spectrum of lifestyle activities including adven-ture, art, dining, entertainment, fashion, furniture, health, home, jewellery, spas, speciality, travel, wine estates and more.

Current Legacy Lifestyle brand partners include SAA Voyager, Dis-Chem, Mastercard, Pringle, Lib-erty Life, BMW, Lorna Jane and the Cross Trainer.

Legacy Lifestyle members earn a percentage of their purchase with each transaction — which is credited to their Legacy Lifestyle account in the equivalent of Zimbabwean dollars.

Rewards earned at one retails merchant, can be spent at another merchant who is part of the programme.

All earn and spend transactions are tracked using member’s mobile phones number as their membership number.

The Legacy Lifestyle Programme will be availa-ble at all six hotels managed by the Legacy Group in Zimbabwe, namely: The Monomotapa Hotel (Harare), The Kingdom Hotel and Elephant Hills Resort (Victoria falls), Hwange Safari Lodge and Troutbeck Resort (Nyanga).

Members gain access to 20 percent off the best available rate when booking accommodation and depending on their membership level, they are able to earn up to 12 percent back in Zimbabwe-an dollars.

Speaking at the launch event, Legacy Lifestyle managing director Michael Levinsohn said: “We are very proud to launch Legacy Lifestyle in Zim-babwe and we look forward to providing real ben-efits to the thousands of Zimbabweans who we know will join the programme.

“The programme will be great for retailers in Zimbabwe because we use the collective buying power of a large group of people to serve the needs of the community. We also see a major op-portunity to showcase Zimbabwe as a wonderful tourist destination through our travel arm, and to help the country generate much needed foreign currency,” Levinsohn.

Over the next few months, the Legacy Lifestyle team will be meeting with retailers across Zim-babwe to invite them to participate in the pro-gramme.

African Sun Limited CEO Edwin Shangwa said the launch was coming at a time when African Sun Limited took a decision to change its business model in 2015 from an operating company to an investment company.

“This card is popular in other destinations in Africa especially in South Africa and we are very proud to introduce it to our local market. It is our belief that with your support the card will deliver value to you our valued customers and us as the owner and operator.

Legacy Group manages five African Sun Limit-ed hotels in four locations in Zimbabwe — Harare, Victoria Falls, Hwange and Nyanga.

the MoU we signed with them. It is our wish to expand this collaboration to cov-er other markets in the entire Europe and beyond,” said Kaseke.

The ZTA boss added that apart from

Ethiopian Airlines there are other Air-lines that have expressed interest in fly-ing into the resort town of Victoria Falls.

“A number of Airlines have shown interest in flying into Victoria Falls and

as government we will continue to court more airlines because we want to see the full utilization of the recently up-graded and commissioned Victoria Falls International Airport. It has untapped potential to become a hub of air traffic in the sub region,” he said.

The ZTA and Ethiopian Airlines signed a Memorandum of Understanding for joint marketing and cooperation last year.

In the spirit of the same pact, the two parties have continued to work to-gether particularly during Zimbabwe’s premier business exchange, Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo that saw the hosting of travel trade buyers from Spain and Portugal.

Meanwhile, more promotional pro-grammes for this market are lined up for this year and beyond.

The Ethiopian Airlines will, from March 26, be flying into Victoria Falls four times a week and prospects of in-creasing its frequency are high accord-ing to Bekele.

ZTA, Ethiopian Airlines forge ties

ZTA chief executive, Karikoga Kaseke, flanked by Alemu Bekele, Ethiopian Airlines area manager for Spain and Portugal (left), and the ZTA market

representative in Spain and Portugal, Cesar Siankope, at the Zimbabwe stand at Fitur Expo in Spain.

Legacy Life launches in Zimbabwe