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Faith Katete

Herald Reporter

THE Tourism and Hospitality sectors are pinning hopes on the ongoing vaccination programme for the recovery of the industry, president of the Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe, Mr Clive Chinwada, has said.

This comes as workers in the hospitality and tourism sector in Harare received their jabs at Rainbow Towers yesterday.

Mr Chinwada said the vaccination exercise in Harare will return the tourism industry to its rightful path.

“We are appreciative of the gesture from government as the tourism sector as far as vaccination is concerned, we are grateful to the city health department with whom we have been working in this particular project as the tourism industry,” he said.

“For travel to return to normalcy, vaccination is believed to be an integral component of public confidence in as far as travelling is concerned. We believe that the initiative that we are on which has seen the bulk of our workforce being vaccinated will see us being able to manage and contain the pandemic in such a way that, going forward, we will be able to trade smoothly.”

Rainbow Towers corporate communications and innovations manager Mrs Pride Khumbula said the vaccination of the workforce will stir the tourism industry.

“We believe that the vaccination programme can help us get back on the recovery growth for the tourism industries, so we are quite positive that this drive will ensure that we can start getting back to normal tourism business in the near future,” she said.

The tourism and hospitality industry is one of the key foreign currency earners in the country and employs thousands of people along the value chain.

Already, the country has the National Tourism Recovery and Growth Strategy, which seeks to provide increased funding to tourism businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic through a Tourism Revolving Fund.