The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority will unveil a new marketing package to entice tourists into the country ahead of the Soccer World Cup tournament in South Africa in 2010, an official said Friday.

The authority's marketing and communications director Givemore Chidzidzi said the global sporting showcase was a golden chance for the tourism sector in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

"Obviously in terms of hosting the World Cup, we will market our wildlife, parks, and natural wonders. Internationally, tourism packages have been viewed not per each country but per region," he said.

"Right now the attention is on the World Cup in Germany and the whole of Europe, when that is over, it automatically shifts to the SADC region. We will be launching an aggressive marketing drive for our resort areas."

Historically, he said, most of the qualifying teams to the global tournament came from nowhere near SADC, with the majority coming from Europe, Asia and South America.

Football history, Chidzidzi said, had shown that fans follow their favourite teams everywhere and the majority of them would want to maximise their chances of seeing the entire sub region.

South Africa, just like Germany, would be unlikely to single-handedly accommodate all the visitors and talks were already underway to capture the excess number of international visitors, he said.

In Zimbabwe, tourism is the third largest forex earner after agriculture and mining.

Source: Xinhua