Religious Tourism: In search of the holy cash cow

“Keep thy gates open, do not close them during the day; do not close them during the night so that you may enjoy the wealth of the gentiles, with their kings in procession,” reads Isaiah Chapter 60:11, a Bible verse used by Tourism Minister Engineer Walter Mzembi when propounding his view that Zimbabwe has a lot to benefit from religious tourism.

The minister made the remarks in Parliament, where he said of the world’s 1,1 billion tourist arrivals, 300 million are inspired to travel by spiritual or faith-based reasons.

Eng Mzembi is of the view that Zimbabwe, too, can have its fair share of the religious tourism cake if it liberalises its visa conditions a bit for such travellers.

Studies show that religious tourism has potential to contribute 20 percent of the total tourism earnings in the country over the next five years.

According to online references, religious tourism, also commonly referred to as faith tourism, is when people travel individually or in groups for pilgrimage, missionary, or leisure/fellowship purposes.

Simplified, this means anyone travelling for faith-based or spiritual reasons, within or to other countries, is a religious tourist.A good example of religious tourism is the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where an estimated two million Muslims converge to observe a holy week.

In Africa, with the rise of the likes of Nigeria’s TB Joshua, Zimbabwe’s Emmanuel Makandiwa and Walter Magaya and Pastor Chris based in South Africa, there is now mass movement by Christians travelling to and within the continent for various spiritual reasons. Prophets Makandiwa and Magaya are huge Christian crowd-pullers due to their preaching and related talents.

Recently, Prophet Makandiwa’s “Judgment Night 2 Conference” was attended by an estimated congregation of 150 000 people, with a significant number of them being people who had come in specifically for this event from South Africa, Zambia, Kenya and other countries. The challenge is on getting such visitors to combine their religious “business” with longer stays that include spending time at tourist resorts so as to pump more money into the national economy. Religious tourism has helped revive the country’s international reputation as a safe and desirable tourist destination, contrary to what some sections of the media have been saying. Religious tourists are more inclined to visit holy cities and sites rather than just attend a single worship service, though these, too, are important. It is around sites such as Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Vatican City that other countries have built their religious tourism. They have also leveraged on specific days like Easter and other annual feasts and celebrations.

About 60 percent of tourists who visit Nigeria are said to be religious tourists who want to see personalities.

“It does not surprise us that we have traffic flow into Nigeria pursuing Prophet TB Joshua.

We also have our own gains into this country in the likes of the local prophets who are also attracting their own traffic and I know of Prophet Makandiwa, Prophet Magaya and others on a weekly basis,” said Eng Mzembi.

But will this work here?

Although religious tourism is increasingly gaining popularity in the country, some critics say the concept is not practical in Zimbabwe’s current context. Hospitality expert Mr Leonard Rungano said it was critical for tourism stakeholders to check the efficiency of already proven tourism strategies before exploring new ones.

“There are many well-known methods of marketing the country as a tourist destination but that does not mean that all of them work,” he said.

“For instance, there is so much noise about religious tourism in Zimbabwe, but who has checked if the system is really working or not?

“My belief is that although we are witnessing huge crowds following Magaya and Makandiwa, not many of them are really coming to spend money here but to get healed.”

Mr Rungano added that implementation of traditional strategies had been disappointing. “There are already a good number of strategies that haven’t yielded results but you won’t know which ones are working and which ones are not working if you do not do an evaluation to check where you are standing as a tourist destination.”

Eng Mzembi, however, insists religious tourism is already up and running in Zimbabwe as witnessed by the amount of business that churches are bringing to the country.

“As Government, we have extended, in order to encourage religious tourism, two Statutory Instruments, 172 and 173, that cover the incentivisation of the hospitality sector to the religious sector,” he said. “In other words, church-inspired and faith-based business can now ride on the back of these two Statutory Instruments in order to grow their faith-based business opportunities. Here, I cite convention centres, restaurants, transport business because the church itself has become a market. “Two weeks ago, we witnessed 180 000 parishioners along the Masvingo highway near Waterfalls where Prophet Magaya was ministering. If you have 180 000 congregants and each one of them buys a bottle of mineral water at US$1, that is already US$180 000 in circulation on a single product line called water.” Eng Mzembi said the country had to relax its visa conditions to maximise on tourist arrivals.

“East Africa has registered far greater gains than us and I am referring to Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania. It is a benchmark study that we are already following in Southern Africa, to see if we can get to those levels of openness, so that we can also enjoy the wealth of the (visitors).”

Economic analyst Ms Vandudzai Zirebwa said it was important for authorities to target locals in their marketing campaigns to boost tourism.

“While it is a good thing that we target foreign tourists, it is also wise that we target local tourists because as Zimbabweans we are not travelling to our tourist destinations as we ought to do,” she said. “There is a lot of revenue that Government can realise from domestic tourism alone,” he said.