MISS World organisers have snubbed Zimbabwe Tourism Authority's invitation to have the pageant contestants visit Zimbabwe today. The 112 models from across the globe -- including our own Vanessa Sibanda -- are camped in South Africa ahead of the Miss World finals slated for December 12 in Johannesburg.

Sources at ZTA say the tourism authority proposed that the models visit Victoria Falls and had put provisional dates as today and tomorrow.

The programme would have seen the models jetting into Harare this afternoon, fly to Victoria Falls tomorrow and leave the country on Tuesday.

ZTA had labelled the visit 'Victoria Falls Children's Charity Evening'.

Miss World organisers are said to have initially agreed to the arrangement but later cut communication with ZTA until finally announcing that their schedule was too tight to accommodate the Zimbabwe trip.

Efforts to get comment from the organisers were fruitless.

The pageant contestants have toured various resorts in the UK and South Africa since getting into camp on November 6.

ZTA boss Karikoga Kaseke said the Zimbabwean trip had been cancelled due to a communication breakdown.

"The organisers had accepted our invitation and told us that we would shoulder all the expenses of the trip," Kaseke said.

"We were supposed to charter a plane to bring them here and take care of their welfare here.

"We were also supposed to pay royalties for the visit but they did not provide the figure.

"Up to now, we do not know how much we were supposed to pay as royalties and that communication breakdown disturbed the arrangement."

But sources at the tourism authority revealed that Miss World organisers had only indicated that they would provisionally book the Zimbabwean trip while making further consultations.

"The 'further consultations' could have disqualified the trip because the organisers became evasive and stopped responding to communication from ZTA," said a source.

Kaseke said they would have done all they could to make sure that the models visit the country if the trip had been confirmed.

He said the royalty fee could have been very high but it was necessary that such opportunities be utilised to rebuild the country's damaged image.

"We have an image problem here and we have to throw as much as we can towards sprucing up that image.

"This is not going to be a cheap matter. We should be prepared to pay our way through," he said.

Ironically, ZTA has blown a lot of money in hiring foreign musicians and actors in an attempt to market the country but nothing tangible has come from the expensive endeavours.