HARARE - Telecel Zimbabwe has partnered the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) in a sponsorship deal worth over $30 000 ahead of the Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Fair commencing on Thursday.

Telecel’s chief executive Francis Mawindi said the agreement provides a business opportunity for both entities to showcase their products to both existing and potential customers.

“Telecel is happy to be associated with the efforts of ZTA to promote tourism in Zimbabwe and the region. We are also happy to play a part in ensuring that our tourism sector grows to its fullest potential while creating the much needed employment opportunities and contributing to the national economy through tourist revenues,” said Mawindi.

The agreement, although specific to the upcoming world travel and tourism fair, marks the beginning of collaborative engagement that will be for the long-term and bring benefits to Zimbabwe through the active promotion of tourism.

According to the terms of agreement, in addition to providing sponsorship funds, Telecel will help publicise the event through bulk SMSs and ZTA will in turn allow the mobile operator to make use of the fair to publicise its products and services.

“They are our partners for life. Whatever we are going to do in tourism for as long as Telecel is operating in Zimbabwe, the partnership has no expiry date,” said ZTA’s chief executive Karikoga Kaseke.

ZTA’s head of corporate affairs Sugar Chagonda added the partnership was a strategic one in terms of communicating about the country’s tourism to the rest of the world.

“We need to complement each other and taking into consideration that we are coming from different standpoints..... Certainly for tourism to develop we need strategic partners in terms of communication.

“The partnership will not only be zeroed in to Sanganai but it will go into other activities we will partake,” said Chagonda.

He added the creation of a communication platform will enable the tourism mother body to reach to as many people as possible.

“Right now we are doing a number of programmes under the realm of trying to make tourism available for everyone by 2015 and this is a great opportunity to reach out to everyone with strategic partners,” he said.

Zimbabwe and Zambia are already counting down on the joint hosting of the United Nations World Tourism General Assembly in Victoria Falls next year and both organisations hope to play a significant role in its successful hosting. - Kudzai Chawafambira