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Business Reporter

OCCUPANCY levels for Victoria Falls Hotels averaged 50 percent over this year’s Easter Holiday period, the highest in four years, underpinned by local visitors, industry players said.

Domestic tourism is oriented towards a range of local experiences, especially day trips and weekend retreats, as well as business travel to critical customers and suppliers.

Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) Matabeleland chair Anald Musonza said the just-ended Easter Holiday was much busier than last year as movement was not restricted.

“Victoria Falls Hotels averaged around 50 percent occupancy during the Easter period, this huge growth from last year,” he said.

Mr Musonza said this year’s Easter holidays were the best in terms of occupancy levels compared to the past four years, owing to better state of the economy and reduced Covid-19 infections.

“This year was the best year in terms of occupancy for the last four years as the previous years were affected by change of currency coupled with inflation and Covid-19 in the past two years,” he said.

The association had projected that Victoria Falls hotels would record occupancy levels significantly above 50 percent capacity.

“This year’s Easter coincided with Independence holiday and more locals visited Victoria Falls,” Mr Musonza said.

While domestic tourism alone is inadequate to cover the vacuum created by loss of lost international business, more Zimbabweans travelling domestically have the potential to drive the much-needed revenue growth in the sector.

“We still see more domestic tourists as the major anchor of our industry at the moment, with regional and international markets starting to open up and as well as international travel picking up .”

Mr Musonza, on the effect of eased lockdowns said: “Obviously, with the reopening of the border, we also saw quite a lot of self-drive traffic coming in, across the country. We can see the occupancies ranging within 50 percent compared to the prior year during the same period when occupancy was around 20 percent.”

Tourism contributes to poverty alleviation through job creation, encourages entrepreneurship and promotes social cohesion.

The 10th Victoria Falls Carnival slated for April 29 to May 1 2022 is poised to boost occupancies.

With tourism being a key economic driver in the country, experts say it is imperative for policymakers to be informed about the sector’s year-on-year performance, in order to maximise its potential. Whereas the average employment potential of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was 7,1 percent in 2012, Zimbabwe had been employing 8,7 percent of its workers in this sector, reflecting the importance of the industry to national development.

Regardless the impressive employment record, the country still has underutilised capacity in the industry, hence the drive to develop the industry to a US$2 billion industry by 2024. The coming in of the New Dispensation in 2017, resulted in a record US$1,4 billion earnings from tourism in 2018, showing the global goodwill the new Government towed, according to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority.

However, the huge drop to $359 million in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic on travel and tourism.

Under the National Tourism Recovery and Growth Strategy — Vision 2025, the government targets to increase tourist arrivals to over 5,5 million by 2023, as well as growing tourism receipts from US$1 billion in 2017 to US$3,5 billion by 2023