by BERNARD CHIKETO
ZIMBABWE’S tourism minister used the Angolan capital as a podium this week to trumpet a sector transformed by global acclaim and policy overhaul, as regional leaders gathered to weigh tourism’s potential as an engine of economic diversification.
Addressing the Ministerial Dialogue on Tourism, Investment and National Development at the Angola Investment Summit 2026, Barbara Rwodzi, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister, presented the country’s resurgence as a case study in how strategic statecraft and private-sector confidence can reanimate a struggling industry.
Speaking on behalf of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, she anchored Zimbabwe’s pitch in what officials term “soft diplomacy” — a deliberate cultivation of international goodwill underpinned by domestic stability.
The timing was opportune. Minister Rwodzi found herself on the receiving end of unsolicited validation from Victoria Rubadiri, CNN’s Connecting Africa correspondent, who congratulated the minister on two distinctions that have elevated Zimbabwe’s profile in competitive global travel markets.
The first was Forbes magazine’s ranking of Zimbabwe as the world’s number one must-visit destination for 2025. The second was her own recognition as Tourism Minister of the Year in Africa for 2025, awarded at ITB Berlin.
For a country that until recently laboured under the weight of international sanctions and a reputation for institutional fragility, the accolades mark a conspicuous turn.
]Forbes, in its citation, praised Zimbabwe’s “mosaic of rugged wild terrain and deep ancestral heritage” — from the ancient stone city of Great Zimbabwe to the thunderous gorges of Victoria Falls. The magazine noted that flight searches to Bulawayo had surged more than 80% and to Harare by 56%.
Minister Rwodzi, in response, attributed the momentum to the “Zimbabwe is Open for Business” policy, a signature initiative of the Mnangagwa administration that has sought to reset investor perceptions after years of isolation.
She pointed to the successive National Development Strategies — NDS 1 and NDS 2 — as frameworks that have enabled product and destination diversification beyond the country’s traditional safari-and-waterfall circuit.
The strategy now encompasses cultural and heritage tourism, community-based ventures, meetings and conferences, and adventure travel, among others with tourism now having 12 clusters.
The numbers lend weight to the narrative.
Zimbabwe recorded an estimated 1.6 million international tourist arrivals by November 2025, marking one of the strongest post-pandemic recoveries in the region.
The sector’s contribution to foreign currency generation, job creation and infrastructure investment has made it a central pillar of the government’s Vision 2030 ambition to attain upper-middle-income status.
The Luanda summit, which drew more than a thousand delegates from ten countries, including the presidents of Angola and Mozambique, was convened precisely to explore how tourism can be transformed from a peripheral activity into a bankable asset class.
Angola’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Augusto Kalikemala, framed the event as a platform to demonstrate that the sector can generate adequate returns and instill investor confidence.
For Zimbabwe, the gathering offered an opportunity to do more than showcase.
It provided a platform to engage prospective investors eyeing opportunities in a sector that, by official accounts, is no longer merely recovering but expanding.
Minister Rwodzi’s message was clear: the Forbes crown and the ministerial award are not endpoints but instruments — leverage to convert international recognition into hard commitments of capital and partnership.
The summit concluded with the signing of five memoranda of understanding and site visits for investors, underscoring a regional consensus that tourism, if properly financed and governed, can deliver the employment and growth that extractive industries alone have failed to secure.
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