Published: 05 December 2013

Tourism ministers from Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, want the regional tourism promotion body, RETOSA, restructured and properly reintegrated into SADC.

The SADC tourism ministers also want to develop a working strategy to see tourism in Africa taken as a responsibility of the African Union (AU).

This came out of the 2013 SADC Tourism Ministers Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, where the ministers took matters into their own hands for the benefit of tourism on the African continent.

The way forward for RETOSA had been discussed for many years and it was at this Mozambique meeting that tourism ministers knew the eyes of Southern Africa was on them to see how the mandate given at the Grand Baie, Mauritius, meeting in March 2012 was being followed.

A final consultative meeting was called for by Minister Walter Mzembi of Zimbabwe who was in the chair at this important meeting.

Minister Mzembi was sitting with the SADC Secretariat Representative and called on his counterparts from the Seychelles, Zambia, and South Africa and of Mozambique for final consultations.

A four-person committee made up of tourism ministers from Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Malawi was named to oversee the restructuring transition, and they will be reporting back to the SADC tourism ministers at a meeting set for February 2014.

- eTN Travel and Industry

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