Zimbabwe Expands Religious Tourism Growth Through Zion Christian Church Golden Jubilee Heritage Celebrations

Written By: Gishan Das

Gishan Das

Gishan Das is a dedicated graduate with academic backgrounds in History and Political Science and practical experience in journalism and digital content creation. He completed his History Honours from Serampore College under the University of Calcutta and Political Science Honours from Indira Gandhi National Open University in 2025. His academic credentials are supported by professional certifications including a B2 level Certification in French language, NISM Financial Education certification in collaboration with the Aditya Birla Group alongside Gishan has strong expertise in journalism, news research and SEO-based content writing. He has demonstrated skills in news analysis, fact-checking, headline creation, digital storytelling and search-optimized reporting, which are also reflected in the journalism and media skills

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August 5, 2026 19:18 GMT+5:30

Zimbabwe is enhancing the practice of religious tourism by incorporating religion into their heritage-based tourism industry through the Zion Christian Church Golden Jubilee celebrations that took place at Defe in Gokwe. These celebrations illustrate the potential of religious festivals in the context of cultural conservation, development and entrepreneurship.

The program included worship and participation in the Amai’s Traditional Cookout Competition where indigenous foods and drinks were showcased as part of the celebration. Women, youth and individuals with disabilities showcased traditional foods and beverages thus turning cultural knowledge into a tangible tourism product. The program is consistent with the overall efforts of Zimbabwe in making use of culture and heritage for diversification of their tourism products.

Defe Demonstrates the Economic Reach of Religious Gatherings

Large religious celebrations can create temporary visitor economies around destinations that may not usually receive substantial conventional leisure traffic. Worshippers travelling to Defe in Gokwe require transport, food, retail services and other forms of local support. This creates potential demand for informal traders, farmers, caterers, artisans and community enterprises.

The ZCC Golden Jubilee also showed that a faith gathering can carry cultural and economic significance beyond its principal religious purpose. By integrating tourism and gastronomy programming, organisers gave visitors opportunities to engage with local products and practices while supporting the surrounding community. Official material does not provide a complete attendance or expenditure assessment, but the event demonstrates the government’s intention to connect religious participation with local economic activity.

The Cookout Competition Connects Faith With Culinary Heritage

The Amai’s Traditional Cookout Competition formed the principal tourism component of the celebrations. Participants presented indigenous products including mabumbe, manyenya, nyii and mawuyu juice, turning the gathering into a platform for food heritage, skills and community storytelling.

The competition was pioneered under the patronage of First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa and has developed into a national programme involving communities, churches, professional chefs, students, young people and persons with disabilities. The sixth national edition in May 2026 brought participants from all ten provinces to Kwekwe, reflecting its expansion from a smaller cultural initiative into a broad gastronomy-tourism programme.

Indigenous Food Becomes a Distinctive Tourism Product

Traditional cuisine gives Zimbabwe an opportunity to provide experiences that visitors cannot easily reproduce elsewhere. Recipes, preparation methods and ingredients carry information about climate, agriculture, family traditions and local identity. The cookout programme encourages communities to treat this knowledge as an economic asset without disconnecting it from its cultural foundations. Foods and beverages presented at religious gatherings can inspire temporary restaurants, catering enterprises, food trails and culinary demonstrations.

They can also create markets for growers and small-scale processors supplying traditional grains, fruits, vegetables and drinks. Zimbabwe Tourism Authority programmes have promoted products such as manyanya, mabumbe, mukoyo, madora, harurwa, matemba and mapfura wine, illustrating the breadth of the country’s culinary heritage.

Women Gain a Stronger Position in the Tourism Value Chain

The programme places women at the centre of gastronomy tourism because much of Zimbabwe’s inherited culinary knowledge has traditionally been preserved within households and communities. Public competitions allow that expertise to be recognised as a professional, cultural and commercial skill. Participants can use the exposure to establish catering businesses, supply food at events or develop packaged products. This creates an entry point into tourism for people who may not own hotels, operate safari companies or possess large amounts of investment capital.

The broader national competition has expanded from its original participation model to include women from different backgrounds, community representatives and professional cooks. This approach supports a more distributed visitor economy in which tourism income can reach households and smaller enterprises.

Young People Can Turn Heritage Knowledge Into Employment

The inclusion of young people is important for both cultural preservation and employment creation. Traditional recipes risk disappearing when younger generations regard them as outdated or economically irrelevant. Tourism can reverse that perception by showing that inherited knowledge has commercial and professional value.

Young participants can combine established cooking methods with food safety, digital marketing, modern presentation and business management. This does not require replacing authentic recipes with internationalised versions. Instead, technical and entrepreneurial skills can make indigenous cuisine easier to promote and sell. Religious gatherings provide practical markets where emerging caterers can test products, understand customer demand and develop confidence before moving into larger tourism events, festivals or formal hospitality businesses.

Inclusive Participation Extends to Persons With Disabilities

The presence of persons with disabilities reinforces the government’s objective of ensuring that tourism development reaches groups that have frequently faced barriers to employment and entrepreneurship. Participation must involve more than ceremonial inclusion. Venues, competition spaces, training programmes and commercial opportunities need to remain accessible. Successful participants should also have pathways towards finance, markets, certification and continued business development after individual events conclude.

The national cookout programme has deliberately included persons with disabilities alongside community cooks, students, churches and professional chefs. This model supports the principle that tourism growth should create practical opportunities across society instead of concentrating benefits among established companies and urban businesses.

Religious Tourism Can Spread Spending Into Emerging Destinations

Zimbabwe’s best-known international attractions include Victoria Falls, national parks, wildlife areas and archaeological heritage sites. Religious tourism creates another route for distributing travel towards communities that may sit outside established international circuits. Faith gatherings occur in different provinces and often attract domestic visitors who travel in groups, return regularly and maintain strong connections with host communities.

Their expenditure can support rural transport, food production and small-scale accommodation. For Gokwe, the ZCC celebrations demonstrate how a major church event can generate destination visibility and stimulate local participation. Stronger results would require reliable roads, sanitation, visitor safety, waste management and coordinated information so that increased attendance does not place unmanaged pressure on residents or the environment.

Tourism Growth Provides a Positive National Backdrop

The programme took place as Zimbabwe’s tourism sector continued its recovery and expansion. The Ministry of Tourism stated that international tourist arrivals increased by 11 per cent during the first quarter of 2026. The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority has also published dedicated first-quarter performance results as part of its tourism statistics programme.

This growth provides a favourable backdrop for developing less conventional products such as faith tourism, gastronomy, cultural festivals and community experiences. However, international arrival growth does not automatically guarantee benefits for places hosting religious events. Local economic impact depends on procurement patterns, visitor spending, business participation and the capacity of communities to supply services. Religious and culinary tourism can deepen that impact by connecting visitor activity with food producers, performers and small businesses.

Heritage-Based Tourism Supports Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030

The government is positioning tourism as a contributor to Vision 2030, under which Zimbabwe aims to achieve an upper-middle-income economy. The national vision identifies tourism development and the implementation of tourism planning as part of the country’s economic transformation.

At Defe, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Barbara Rwodzi connected the cookout and religious-tourism programme with inclusive development, the African Union Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The underlying policy principle is that heritage should create economic opportunity while remaining socially and culturally meaningful. This requires communities to participate as producers and decision-makers, not merely as performers presented to visitors.

Gastronomy Strengthens Zimbabwe’s Cultural Diplomacy

Zimbabwe is also using gastronomy tourism as a form of cultural diplomacy. Traditional food provides an accessible way to introduce international audiences to the country’s history, agriculture and community values. UN Tourism has previously highlighted Zimbabwe’s efforts to connect agriculture, gastronomy and tourism. It also selected Victoria Falls to host Africa’s first regional gastronomy-tourism forum in 2024, where the country’s commitment to using food for sustainable tourism development received international attention.

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority states that the First Lady has received international recognition for promoting African gastronomy. Such visibility can support national branding, but its lasting value will depend on converting recognition into stronger businesses, better training and international demand for authentic Zimbabwean culinary experiences.

Faith and Food Create a More Inclusive Tourism Future

Defe’s Golden Jubilee of the ZCC illustrates how religious tourism can transcend the act of worship and contribute towards cultural education, enterprise creation and community engagement. By incorporating the Amai’s Traditional Cookout Competition, traditional food was able to be included within the touristic experience while providing a public arena for women, youth and people with disabilities.

Zimbabwe now needs to follow up on these kinds of activities by way of skills training, food safety standards, accessibility, markets and improved local economic impact measures. If this is done, religious events and indigenous culinary traditions can aid in developing the Zimbabwean tourist economy, preserving living culture and creating livelihoods outside of the country’s usual tourist entry points.

Image Source: Zimbabwe Tourism Authority