Initiative targets jobs, skills gap in Zimbabwe’s tourism sector
HARARE — A global hospitality initiative is launching in Zimbabwe with a programme aimed at better connecting tourism training with employment, including bringing local and international job opportunities directly to final-year students.
Hubert Ummels, founder of the Future Leaders Platform and owner and founder of GameChangers Group, said at a news conference at a Harare hotel Wednesday that Zimbabwe would officially join an initiative already operating across 32 countries.
“The Future Leaders Platform is an initiative to empower, elevate, and educate stakeholders to achieve their full potential and to enable an ecosystem that’s going to support workforce development in Zimbabwe,” Ummels said.
“So what we do is we have a number of initiatives that create more opportunities for sustainable employment, focused on the hospitality and tourism industry in the country.”
Zimbabwe piloted the programme last year, but Ummels said 2026 would mark its official launch.
The initiative will culminate in an October event bringing together students, hospitality school directors, industry leaders and employers to examine how training can better respond to the needs of the tourism industry.
“We’re going to talk about how to create a more aligned ecosystem to connect education and to create more seamless graduate to employment,” Ummels said.
“Which means that we teach young people education, or we’re going to provide them tools to education that are going to give them a far better chance to be employed within the country and internationally.”
The programme will also include a job market fair targeting students preparing to enter the industry.
“During that day, we’re also going to have a job market fair, which means that we’re actually bringing international jobs and national jobs for young people to the country during that event,” Ummels said.
Final-year students selected from Zimbabwe’s hospitality and tourism schools will also tackle an industry challenge, with the top three teams earning an opportunity to compete internationally.
“The top three winners of that challenge are going to be invited to the Global Future Leaders Platform finals in Dubai, representing Zimbabwe, where at that point about 65 schools coming from 32 countries from all over the world are participating in a global finals conference,” Ummels said.
Another component will focus on Zimbabwe’s culinary heritage, with vocational students researching the country’s food and drink traditions and developing a two-course meal they believe represents Zimbabwe’s culinary identity.
Ummels said the exercise was intended to raise the profile of vocational education and encourage young people to view craftsmanship and artisan skills as viable careers within tourism and hospitality.
The Future Leaders Platform says its broader objective is to bring industry, educational institutions, government and young people together to develop a human capital strategy that better matches training with the needs of employers.
