MONA-LISA DUBE
Top international hotel brands- Radisson Group and Hilton Hotels- have expressed a strong interest in investing in Zimbabwe, Business Times can report.
The latest development was revealed by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority CEO, Winnie Machanyuka.
She told Business Times that the ZTA team was scouting for more investments.
It comes at a time statistics show that Zimbabwe has the least international hotels in the SADC region.
“I can tell you that we have three projects that will be coming up that are international brands,” Machanyuka said adding, “We have a Radisson Blue that will be coming up, we have a Hilton project that will be coming and I know that one local company has gone into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Times Hotels also wanting to invest in the country.”
She added : “ZTA team members that are working in that section have been travelling across the world, going to different forums and different conferences where investors are coming and they are looking at opportunities across the world to invest.”
She said the coming in of the big brands will also attract others to come through.
“I would say that in the next two to three years we will have facilities that would have gone up that are internationally branded,” she said.
Machanyuka added: “We want international brands to be present in the market but those also can come on a partnership with locals.”
Machanyuka said the ZTA was also looking forward to pension funds, banking institutions and those that have capital to partner foreigner investors.
“They can build the structures and then the international operators can come in and operate these international plans, employ locally but be internationally branded. That is how we will have more investment in that direction come through to the country,” Machanyuka said.
