About 700 feet from Zambezi National Park and less than a 10-minute drive to Mosi-oa-Tunya, a.k.a. Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, Mbano Manor Hotel is the first luxury boutique hotel in the city of Victoria Falls owned by a Black female Zimbabwean.
“Most investors could not believe that a Black woman could open a five-star-style lodging,” says proprietor Matifadza Nyazema, who courted more than 100 of them after completing her Ph.D. thesis on Black economic empowerment in the hotel industry. Today she is inspiring other Black women to rise up in African tourism.