Victoria Falls Forum

Victoria Falls Forum 3^rd July 2024

Location Elephant Hills Victoria falls City Zimbabwe

The first Harare Forum for Africa and China -Zimbabwe Civilizational Dialogue and Rural Development Cooperation “Academic Week.

Welcome remarks were done from by Dr Du from China-Zimbabwe Exchange Centre.

Mr Steve Zhao Ke introduced the Harare Forum to the people and highlighted that it was the first of its kind and that it will also be done in Harare on the 8^th of July 2024.The forum is meant for tourism culture exchange. The core and objective of the form is to equip and improve rural development through civilization dialogue.

From Zimbabwe the forum was graced by Mr Daniel Mumpande the regional tourism manager for Zimbabwe Tourism Authority who is well versed with the tourism strategy in Zimbabwe. He talked about tourism development and community tourism in Zimbabwe. He also mentioned how tourism can boost the economy of Zimbabwe and also create employment.

On the Zimbabwe tourism strategy, he mentioned

• Destination Marketing through digital marketing and also international travel shows.
• Product Development through Eco tourism, culture tourism, community-based enterprise tourism for example in places such as Monde and Sizinda in Victoria falls

In addition to the above he also encouraged culture exchange between China and Zimbabwe and also encouraged tourist to embark on rural tourism and learn the roots of the Zimbabwean culture for example old ways of ploughing, grain preparation and also storage of the grains.

Among the strategies he also mentioned the Tourism Infrastructure fund which will unlock the tourism infrastructure development to international level which will significantly boost the tourism of Zimbabwe.

He also encouraged Eco tourism whereby environmentally friendly practices are done in the sustainable tourism. The use of waste separation facilities at Elephant Hills hotel, the use of solar energy and gas for energy.

Community Engagement (Community Based Tourism Enterprises)

Horticulture in communities and sell the products to hotels, creation of villages for tourist to see and learn our way of living. He also mentioned public Private Partnership as a way to boost tourism.

Research and Development

Which is collecting facility utilization statistics from hotels and see how a facility is performing and if not ways of improving the facility’s performance are put in place so as to produce positive results.

Investment promotion

Investment strategies whereby people from the diaspora community  to come and see areas of opportunity in the tourism industry to invest.

A researcher from Jinyun Culture exchange centre called XIAOLING LIU indicated how much she has learnt form the 3 day tour in Victoria falls. She narrates tourism development in Jinyum with the intention of sharing their experience o that Zimbabwe can also learn from the history. Jinyum is a city represented by traditional Chinese colours which are yellow, red and green.

Yellow -Representing the traditional culture which is represented by Huangdi culture which is a legendary figure recognised as a foundation figure for the Chinese Civilization.

Red -Representing the Jinyun Revolutionary Culture. Jinyun is a battleground of war between China and Japan hence it has revolutionary history.

Green Representing the ecological civilization of Jinyunm.She mentioned that mountains, lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.

There was exchange of questions and answer between Chinee Scholars and Zimbabwe tourism department exchanging ideas and solution to tourism development in Zimbabwe. The exercise was coordinated by Mr Steve Zhao Ke.