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Carl Joshua Ncube

Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
Comedian Carl Joshua Ncube has officially appointed himself as a tourism ambassador of Zimbabwe after years of being overlooked by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA).

ZTA, in a drive to promote domestic tourism recently engaged comedians to tour various destinations and market them on social media. The project commenced two weeks ago with stand-up comedian Victor “Doc Vikela” Mpofu and Prosper “The Comic Pastor” Ngomashi visiting tourist attractions in the Lowveld. TV talk show host, Mai Chisamba was also roped in.

Surprisingly, Carl, who for the past years, has been vigorously marketing Zimbabwe’s tourism products to both locals and foreigners, was not included on this project.

Recently, Carl Joshua hosted personalities from CNN in Harare and Victoria Falls and used that opportunity to market Zimbabwe through a feature that was broadcast on CNN’s African Voices.

Currently, he is based in Victoria Falls where he has come up with interesting initiatives as part of efforts to promote the tourist destination.

“I was surprised that there was something of that sort (engagement of comedians to market local tourism destinations) and I’m not part of it. For me, it was an obvious thing because I’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Carl Joshua.

“I don’t know why I’ve been overlooked and I can’t pin point exactly what’s the problem, but I’ll just continue what I’ve been doing.”
As such, Carl says he has appointed himself as a Zimbabwe tourism ambassador because life goes on.

“I saw that I don’t need to wait for them (ZTA) to make me an ambassador. I’m already being one on my own without their endorsement so I’ll just continue promoting Zimbabwe. I think it’s better to do this on my own,” he said.

Revealing his plans as a self-appointed tourism ambassador, Carl, who is the Zambezi House general manager in Victoria Falls said he is working on touring the country to give people a taste of the cuisine from his establishment.

“I want to take a piece of Zambezi House to people’s doorsteps around the country and give them taste of it. I’ll be travelling in a bus armed with a stove to cook,” said Carl.

He said if everything goes well, the national tour will start in September.
ZTA chief executive, Karikoga Kaseke however said they were not sidelining Carl but he should approach them for consideration.

“Carl Joshua Ncube should approach ZTA if he feels aggrieved and show us why he thinks he should be an ambassador. These ambassadors aren’t paid anything so why should anyone overlook someone?” asked Kaseke.

“If anyone thinks they’ve contributed to promoting tourism, they should contact us because these are the people we want to work with. We’re very willing to talk to these people and consider them as our tourism ambassadors because they’ll be doing a service to the country.”

Asked how they appoint tourism ambassadors, Kaseke said: “The person should be influential in Zimbabwe and should have made a name for himself/herself. They should be committed to undertake domestic tourism campaigns in the country. These people are either approached by the ZTA after we feel that they can contribute in boosting domestic tourism or they can approach us and tell us why they think they deserve to be ambassadors.”

“If we’re appointing for a foreign market, the person must be an opinion leader in the market we’re appointing them for.”