Stakeholders' assessments of tourism policy and product development in Zimbabwe

The purpose of this paper is to determine the stakeholders' assessments of tourism policy, and the state of tourism product development in Zimbabwe. The study is argued from the perspective that stakeholder views on tourism have remained an under-researched phenomenon in sub-Saharan Africa. Adopting an exploratory qualitative study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with key tourism stakeholders identified by way of a purposive sampling technique. From the interviews, key issues that came to the fore, were that the tourism policy of Zimbabwe was said to be outdated, the distribution of tourism offerings limited, the economic performance poor, and the state of tourism offerings in the country having been negatively influenced by the political instabilities wracking the country. The study provides some insights into the importance of the role of tourism stakeholders in terms of policy formulation, planning and strategy implementation.