VICTORIA FALLS DECLARED INTEGRATED PROVINCIAL SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE FOR TOURISM

Victoria Falls has been declared a new Integrated Provincial Special Economic Zone dedicated to tourism, with Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion, Professor Mthuli Ncube, presiding over the announcement on Friday.

The declaration places the resort town at the centre of Government’s expanding drive to decentralise industrial development and channel investment into provinces according to their comparative strengths. Victoria Falls, long recognised as the country’s tourism capital and already home to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange and an existing Special Economic Zone status covering financial services, now assumes a fresh designation under the newly approved Integrated Provincial Special Economic Zones framework.

The framework was adopted by Cabinet earlier this year as a strategic instrument to accelerate industrialisation, investment promotion, beneficiation, export growth and employment creation across Zimbabwe’s provinces, in line with the objectives of Vision 2030. It establishes a network of specialised economic zones distributed across all ten provinces, each structured around the sectors in which that province holds a natural or economic advantage. For Matabeleland North, anchored by Victoria Falls, tourism is the clear priority, given the province’s globally renowned natural assets, established hospitality infrastructure and position as the country’s principal gateway for international visitors.

Government has already begun rolling out the framework on a province-by-province basis, having launched the first Integrated Provincial Special Economic Zone in Mashonaland Central. The designation of Victoria Falls extends this implementation phase into one of the country’s most strategically significant tourism corridors, an area that includes ongoing plans for the wider Victoria Falls-Hwange-Binga Special Economic Zone, encompassing satellite developments at Masue and Batoka alongside the resort town itself.

Under the tourism-focused designation, Victoria Falls is expected to benefit from incentives designed to attract further investment into hotels, conference facilities, eco-tourism ventures and supporting infrastructure, while strengthening linkages between accommodation, transport, financial services and the broader visitor economy. The move comes at a time when the town’s tourism sector already accounts for the overwhelming majority of local employment and continues to draw sustained interest from both regional and international investors.

The declaration follows a period of strong momentum for Zimbabwe’s tourism sector more broadly, with the country having recently secured international recognition at ITB Berlin 2026 and posted double-digit growth in both visitor arrivals and tourism receipts in the first quarter of the year. Analysts say formalising Victoria Falls’ status under the new provincial framework should help consolidate these gains by providing a clearer, more structured platform for long-term investment in the resort town’s tourism economy.