Ashley Morgen from Victoria Falls has just been crowned Miss Tourism Zimbabwe 2016, taking home US$20,000, a car and other prizes in a show that was broadcast live on ZBC from a packed HICC. She was also crowned Miss Personality, adding $2,500 to her purse.She told journalists immediately afterwards that she was overwhelmed and that her first initiative would be to donate sanitary pads for rural girl children.
Nonhlanhla Dube took the First Princess crown and was named Miss Agro-Tourism. US$10,000 for her. Shirley-Ann Lindsay was crowned Second Princess and Miss City Tourism and took home $5,000
All the contestants who made it to the final 10 won $1,000 each and a year’s tuition at any college that they were attending.
Making it to the top 7 were Ashley Morgan, Chiedza Chinake, Courtney Matende, Evermore Njanjamangeza, Merilin Ngwenya, Nonhlanhla Dube and Shirley-Ann Lindsay. The judges then made a surprise move when they added another contestant to the top 7, Kudakwashe Chibaiwa, making it top 8.
The biggest surprise of the evening though, was that the outgoing queen was Samantha Tshuma, Miss Tourism Zimbabwe 2010. The question on everyone’s mind as the slender beauty took to the stage was that since Miss Tourism Zimbabwe was a rebranding of Miss Carnival, how come the outgoing Miss Carnival was not named the outgoing queen?
There was no Miss Carnival last year, so the outgoing queen should have been Miss Carnival 2014, Gamuchirayi Kujeke.
Just after 7pm, guest of honour Amai Mugabe walked in, accompanied by Minister of Tourism, Walter Mzembi and his wife Barbara who is also the patron of the pageant. Along with them, was Germam philanthroper, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein
Once they were seated, the proceedings for the evening started off with an energetic performance by Ammara brown and a group of dancers.
In a pre-recorded message, Mr Justice Maphosa, CEO of Big Time Strategy Consultants, which was the biggest sponsor for the event, said that they had sponsored the event because they wanted to take a stance to support Zimbabwean girl children. “We’re saying never again shall a girl child of Zimbabwe be victimised, deprived, looked down upon. We’re stepping up the stage of the girl child and a pageant is one way of bringing dignity to a girl child.”
Mai Mzembi, in her pre-recorded message, said that the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe patronage was offered to her by the CEO of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority in 2014. “I thought it was a very good opportunity for me to enhance my dream of helping the girl child. I’m using Miss Tourism Zimbabwe to protect, enhance and put a dream in every girl child,” she said. She also spoke about how the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe pageant was working to provide poor female students in Zimbabwe with sanitary pads so that they would not miss school. “We have studies that show that 90% of girl children miss five days of school every month,” she averred.
Judges for the pageant were businesswoman, Pamela Havunavanhu, Miss Zimbabwe Trust national chairperson, Marry Chiwenga, former international male model, Jonathan Denga and marketer, events director and head of marketing for the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show, Cynthia Tapera.
The categories for the contestants were cocktail dresses, safari wear and evening wear. The garments for the latter section were created by local designers.
Other performances were by South Africa’s Dr Malinga and then Busiswa. The former took the liberty of leaping off the stage to pull Mai Mugabe to her feet for a brief dance.
The entertainment highlight of the evening was Dr Malinga’s second appearance when he performed his chart topping hit, “Via Orlando”. There were screams from the hundreds of high school students in school uniform sitting in the upper gallery, echoed by other guests at the event.
Spotted in the audience were socialites Pokello Nare, Jackie Ngarande and former ZiFM radio presenter, Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa, choreographer John Cole among others.
Rebecca Muchenje and Tich Mawoni did a decent job of hosting the event. A memorable line from their script was when Muchenje asked Tich how many tourist attractions he knew in Zimbabwe. Tich began his response by saying, “I know you…”
