Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi said the world soccer governing body, FIFA, had a pproved all three-star to five-star hotels in Zimbabwe to handle World Cup visitors.
But the country is unlikely to meet the South African demand as it only has 12,000 hotel beds, prompting government officials to request even people with upmarket homes to offer them up to satisfy the request.
"Our biggest challenge is to ensure that we put our house in order in line with the demands ahead of us," said Mzembi.
"We now need even those individuals owning homes to upgrade them to required standards so that we can meet the bedding requirements," he added.
Mzembi said in addition to providing hotel beds, the country also needed to upgrade its health facilities as this was a key consideration for visitors.
"The soccer players want to know if they can be airlifted to the nearest health facility. They want to know if there are drugs at the clinics - all those things," he said.
Zimbabwe is coming out of a decade of mismanagement in which most infrastructure, including power, telecommunications and water supply, was badly neglected.
Erratic water supply in urban areas was widely blamed for a cholera outbreak at the beginning of the year, in which four thousand people died, and tens of thousands of others were infected.
Harare - 04/05/2009
Pana
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