Minister Walter Mzembi, the Zimbabwe Minister responsible for Tourism, and Minister Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture, met with Carol Hay of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) in Madrid yesterday. The meeting took place at the Seychelles stand at FITUR, the tourism trade fair of Spain.

These two ministers of tourism from Africa, who are part of the SADC working group mandated to look at the restructure of the region`s RETOSA, are the ones forming part of the committee to propose the road map on the way forward for the tourism body of the SADC block of countries. Their meeting with Carol Hay of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) was to be updated on the Caribbean experience in their own tourism grouping.

Both Minister Mzembi of Zimbabwe and Minister St.Ange of the Seychelles said after the meeting that they had found the meeting interesting and productive. “Zimbabwe and Seychelles have been mandated to pan out the way forward for the region`s tourism organization. We are under a very tight timetable to deliver the roadmap for the way forward in time for the February 13 Meeting in Cape Town South Africa where the 6-country committee will sit to prepare their recommendations for the next SADC Ministers meeting scheduled for Livingstone in Zambia.

The 6-country committee is under pressure to have their work completed within the set timetable to ensure that the SADC Heads of State August summit is able to consider the recommendations vis-a-vis RETOSA and tourism in the Southern Africa Region.