News / National
Local media an obstacle to the country's quest to attract tourists: Mzembi
13 Sep 2011 at 12:58hrs | Views
TOURISM and Hospitality Industry Minister Engineer Walter Mzembi has attacked the local media, which he said continue to be the obstacle to the country's quest to attract more tourists.
Minister Mzembi, who was delivering a public lecture under the theme, "Tourism linking with culture" at Midlands State University on Friday, said peace and political stability of a country was key to tourism attraction.
"For us to have an improved number of tourists coming into the country, the most important guarantee that the tourists would want is peace and political stability," he said.
"Regrettably here in Zimbabwe, our local media has developed a tendency of peddling lies, making noise on very few issues that parties in the inclusive Government are not agreeing on."
Minister Mzembi said parties in the inclusive Government were agreeing on almost everything and only differ on very few ideological issues, a reality which he said was not being reflected even in the local media.
"This is the unfortunate situation that we are surviving under as the ministry, surrounded by a hostile media, making a lot of hullabaloo on very few and trivial issues that the country's political parties in the inclusive Government are not agreeing on", he said.
"The inclusive Government is agreeing on 97 percent of issues while three percent of the issues are not but this is not what is reported in the media. In the end the ministry is losing the potential revenue from tourists on those lies in the media. Minister Mzembi said the media should reform and report the true situation that was prevailing in the country.
He said the ministry has, however, come up with its different marketing strategies meant to counter media lies about Zimbabwe.
"To counter falsehoods being said about Zimbabwe in the media, we have come up with various programmes which are meant to tell the true Zimbabwean story. These include expos, exhibitions and the Buy Zimbabwe programme," said Minister Mzembi. He said the country was working on improving the number of tourists coming to the country to five million per year by 2015.
In 2010, Zimbabwe recorded a total of 2,3 million tourists who visited attractive destinations dotted around the country
Minister Mzembi, who was delivering a public lecture under the theme, "Tourism linking with culture" at Midlands State University on Friday, said peace and political stability of a country was key to tourism attraction.
"For us to have an improved number of tourists coming into the country, the most important guarantee that the tourists would want is peace and political stability," he said.
"Regrettably here in Zimbabwe, our local media has developed a tendency of peddling lies, making noise on very few issues that parties in the inclusive Government are not agreeing on."
Minister Mzembi said parties in the inclusive Government were agreeing on almost everything and only differ on very few ideological issues, a reality which he said was not being reflected even in the local media.
"This is the unfortunate situation that we are surviving under as the ministry, surrounded by a hostile media, making a lot of hullabaloo on very few and trivial issues that the country's political parties in the inclusive Government are not agreeing on", he said.
"The inclusive Government is agreeing on 97 percent of issues while three percent of the issues are not but this is not what is reported in the media. In the end the ministry is losing the potential revenue from tourists on those lies in the media. Minister Mzembi said the media should reform and report the true situation that was prevailing in the country.
He said the ministry has, however, come up with its different marketing strategies meant to counter media lies about Zimbabwe.
"To counter falsehoods being said about Zimbabwe in the media, we have come up with various programmes which are meant to tell the true Zimbabwean story. These include expos, exhibitions and the Buy Zimbabwe programme," said Minister Mzembi. He said the country was working on improving the number of tourists coming to the country to five million per year by 2015.
In 2010, Zimbabwe recorded a total of 2,3 million tourists who visited attractive destinations dotted around the country
Source - chronicle
