The Tangible Economic benefits of the 20th Session of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Abstract

This paper is a documentation of the tangible economic benefits that accrued to the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, by co-hosting with Zambia, the 20th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly (GA) in 2013. The paper intends to offset speculations, half-truths and exaggerations on the tangible economic benefits of the event to the town and to contribute significantly to the scanty existing literature on the impact of these events to developing countries. A single case study research design focusing on the town was adopted for this study. The study participants to the research included tourism and hospitality organizations, the Victoria Falls municipality authorities, service providers and Victoria Falls town residents. Researcher administered questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation check lists were used to collect the data. In general, although the GA brought some significant transformative effects to the town of Victoria Falls in terms of employment creation, infrastructural development, revenue generation and the country's image, future host cities and countries to this event should mobilize adequate funds for the event, time it appropriately, ensure a fair spread of the benefits to various sectors and put up structures that do not turn into white elephants soon after the event.

Keywords

• UNWTO General Assembly
• mega events
• tangible economic benefits
• white elephants