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Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
AS the festive season kicks in, the Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe (TBCZ) has said it is anticipating an increase in domestic tourism as locals form a bigger part of the holiday season traffic.
Holidays during the festive are the Unity Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year holidays. In an interview, TBCZ president Mr Wengayi Nhau said locals were expected to boost the tourism sector this festive season compared to regional and international travellers.
“Tourism during the festive season which covers the Christmas and New Year Holidays is primarily boosted and driven more by local travellers as opposed to international or regional ones. In the case of domestic tourism, families that are based locally in the country plan to visit some holiday resorts during the festive season and combine that with visiting families, relatives and friends,” he said.
He said Zimbabweans working in the diaspora take the same time to come back home, not only to visit their villages or rural homes but they also tend to take their families, parents and in-laws around to see a few resorts.
Mr Nhau said they were looking forward to a busy festive period, with the traditional resort areas already reporting impressive bookings.
“We have had reports of good bookings in most of the traditional holiday resorts such as Victoria Falls, Hwange, Great Zimbabwe, Nyanga and Kariba among others. They are preparing for the busy time especially the period between 22 December and 2 January.”
He said the launch of the Festive Season Domestic Campaign — ZIMBHO by the Government was good encouragement for locals to sample some of the natural wonders in the country. The campaign, which runs from 6 November to 15 January, 2024, is aimed at encouraging locals to travel within the country’s tourism destinations this festive season.
It is designed to focus mainly on the domestic market whose contribution to economic growth and development is yet to be fully realised. Mr Nhau said the perceived cost of travel, packages, accommodation and other amenities that one would want on holiday could be a bit costly for some locals.
“As stakeholders we are deliberating on how we can interrogate that value chain with the aim of revising it so that we can have attractive and affordable pricing models, but it’s an issue that needs a lot of effort from all stakeholders, manufacturing and retail sectors, regulators, private sector and Government as well,” he said.
Going in to 2024, Mr Nhau said January was a quiet period before they start having business kicking in with conferences. He said Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) would then start to boost tourism post the festive season.
“People will then start going for meetings, other functions and events. Once the rainy season ends, end of March and beginning of April we then get the traditional tourism season kicking in for the international leisure travellers period between May right through to end of October and beginning of November when the rains start. That will be peak time for the international travel but currently during this festive season we are looking at more of the domestic travellers with a reasonable buying power as a result of the diaspora population that comes in and supplements whatever income that we get on the local market.”
Online Reporter