ECOTOURISM Africa and Sports Tourism has paced up its domestic tourism marketing efforts by improving sporting facilities in resort towns in order to host big games in terms of sports giving the community the opportunity to showcase their talent.
The festival is scheduled for May 27 to 29 to promote sports tourism, market destination Zimbabwe and create sustainable development for marginalized communities in resort towns.
The Sports Tourism Experience will include sporting disciplines that are golf, tennis, mountain biking, marathon, and aerobic events, all of which will be hosted at several venues with the suitable procedures in place to ensure Covid-19 regulations are being followed.
Malvin Kanjere, the public relations and marketing director of Ecotourism Africa and Sports Tourism Inc said the aim of developing the Sports Tourism Experience was to help revive domestic tourism and support the continued collaborative efforts of the Government and the private sector to spur the recovery of tourism.
“This event is more like a social Olympics. We have had situations where social people just enjoy sports coming together from different parts of the country. The main idea is to tour our country and go to the resort’s town and play sports. This will improve the sports around because we want to build more sports facilities in resort towns in order to host major games in terms of sports. We want to give the people in those areas an opportunity to showcase their talent,” he said
Before the epidemic of the Covid-19 pandemic, sports tourism was becoming one of the fastest-rising sectors of the worldwide travel business.
Kanjere added that currently Ecotourism Africa and Sports Tourism are working with sponsors to improve sports in resort areas.
“We are working with a number of sponsors that we have approached. Some of them have been sponsoring us for many years including Define Media, Lake Harvest, and Delta Beverages. We are still waiting for others to come through and in regards with outline the roles of the events in terms of sports, we want to make tourism grow through sports around towns. This creates an opportunity for the girl child to tour their country and as well as showcase themselves in terms of talent.”
The Sports Tourism Experience will tour towns namely Kariba, Masvingo, Nyanga, Victoria Falls, Bulawayo, and Harare starting from 26 May.
The Sports Tourism Experience has incorporated the World Health Organization’s recommended safety guidelines in its operations which include strict hygiene processes, cautious temperature checks, and necessary mask-wearing. Ecotourism Africa works with hoteliers like Africa sun, Montclair, Nyamazi greens and others around Nyanga as well.
