Chronicle Editor
Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE country’s domestic tourism campaign, ZimBHO, is bearing fruit in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) acting chief executive officer, Mr Givemore Chidzidzi, has said.
Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism sector is one of the hardest-hit economic sectors globally as countries imposed national lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain the health crisis.
Speaking on ZBCtv current affairs programme Face the Nation on Tuesday evening, Mr Chidzidzi said last year the country suffered 87 percent loss in visitor arrivals and an almost equal percentage in terms of revenue generation.
He said the tourism sector is beginning to recover following the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions and the ZimBHO campaign.
“When the restrictions were relaxed, we started seeing people travelling a lot. We, as ZTA, were having problems with people asking us to facilitate their travel during the travel ban yet we do not have such powers to allow people to move from point A to B when the ban is in force.
The Covid-19 pandemic was first detected in Zimbabwe in March last year.
Mr Chidzidzi said the ZimBHO campaign was conceived after ZTA realised that following the Covid-19 pandemic, the country would need to resuscitate the tourism sector starting with the domestic market.
He said promoting domestic tourism has always been one of ZTA’s strategies.
“As a strategy, domestic tourism is one of the target markets that we are looking at and promoting domestic tourism was given the required impetus by the outbreak of Covid-19 which closed international tourism. We realised that international and regional tourists were not coming back soon hence the launch of the ZimBHO campaign,” said Mr Chidzidzi.
He said the ZimBHO campaign was launched after extensive consultations.
“The campaign is all about people realising that they can take their holiday within Zimbabwe, it’s not very difficult to take a holiday within Zimbabwe and also it’s a culture that people need to travel and this was evident during the lockdown.
“The moment they were told to live in their homes (lockdown), people realised that travel was very important in their lives,” said Mr Chidzidzi.
Meanwhile, a leading hospitality group, African Sun Limited has indicated that it is pinning hopes on the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination programme after its occupancy levels in 2020 tumbled by 25 percentage points to 23 percent from 48 percent in 2019.
Last year, African Sun also recorded a dip in room nights sold at 137 162 compared to 288 224 in 2019.
The hotel group believes that accelerating the Covid-19 vaccination programme would lead to further relaxation of the restrictions and unlocking leisure and business travel.
Online Reporter