Branding Zimbabwe through tourism and events: A systematic review

Event tourism is arguably a key imperative for destination brand development because of the socio-economic benefits attached to event related travel and tourism spending. This study aimed to address these knowledge gaps for Zimbabwe as a host destination to a series of annual events and festivals. This paper sets out a systematic review of research published about the event tourism industry in Zimbabwe and academic publications from 2012 to 2022 were sourced from various peer reviewed publications (n=98). Atlas ti. was used to code and theme the key findings from these articles to understand the influence of events tourism on emerging destinations such as Zimbabwe. The findings revealed that Zimbabwe’s destination brand has been developed and changed three times, however, it appears that these branding efforts have not been too successful as there is no evidence either way, thus highlighting the gaps in the research scope in event tourism and destination branding in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. The recommendations of this paper are set out to guide stakeholders at various levels of government (institutional) and private (industry) on the potential for event tourism. Moreover, this study implicates existing tourism policies into the key opportunities for Zimbabwe’s destination brand development.