Lemons to lemonade: How Zimbabwe’s tourism minister drove 300km to win back South African tourists

Zimbabwe’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Barbara Rwodzi with South African traveller and influencer George Van Deventer, his partner Malinki, members of the South African touring group and officials from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority during a meeting in Chimanimani aimed at resolving a police roadblock incident and restoring confidence among visiting tourists. Speaking exclusively to IOL from Zimbabwe, George Van Deventer, who lives in Keurboomstrand along South Africa’s picturesque Garden Route in the Western Cape, said he initially recorded and posted a video criticising his experience after he and his travel group were stopped at a police roadblock in Chipinge, describing the encounter as deeply concerning and out of character with the Zimbabwe under the current dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Vehicles from the Trans Africa Self Drive Adventures and Tours group from the Western Cape in South Africa, pictured camping in Zimbabwe during their overland journey through the country.

Van Deventer said he and his partner, Malinki, spend most of the year travelling across the SADC region and have been visiting Zimbabwe since the early 2000s. During the era of former president Robert Mugabe, police had become infamous along Zimbabwe’s freeways for extorting motorists, particularly those driving vehicles with South African registration plates, with travellers frequently fined for issues such as not carrying reflective jackets. Following the change in political leadership under Mnangagwa, there was a marked shift in how tourists experienced road travel in Zimbabwe, with authorities pledging to clean up roadblocks and rebuild the country’s tourism image. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who replaced longtime leader Robert Mugabe in 2017 “Honestly, the last three or four years we have never been harassed or fined at these so-called checkpoints,” Van Deventer said.