Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Bhebhe, Senior Business Reporter
TOURIST arrivals from Russia, who used to dominate the hunting sector, have significantly dropped since the onset of the military operation in Ukraine, placing a squeeze on revenue streams, industry operators say.
The country’s hunting industry is considered critical in terms of revenue generation for the sector.
Lion hunting in Zimbabwe is the biggest attraction and contributor to the hunting industry.
Employers Association for the Tourism and Safari Operators president, Mr Clement Mukwasi, told journalists last week that the Russians formed the bulk of hunters under the consumptive sector but due to the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, they have stopped coming, he noted.
Mr Mukwasi said the Russian tourists used to dominate in the hunting sector before the pandemic.
The tourism industry is divided into consumptive and non-consumptive classification, which is mainly hunting and photographic tourism respectively, he said.
The overall percentage of European tourists coming to Zimbabwe was hovering around 44 percent and of this, 60 percent come for consultative tourism and were Russians, he said.
“On consumptive tourism, most of the people who come to Zimbabwe for hunting, in the history of our industry, are Russians.
They are our major markets but at the moment due to sanctions on Russia (imposed by Western countries), they are unable to travel or make payments outside of their country,” said Mr Mukwasi.
“This makes it impossible to receive tourists from Russia.
We have had a huge reduction of people arriving from Russia.”
The military operation has also halted arrivals from countries surrounding Russia and Ukraine.
“Apart from not receiving tourists from Russia and Ukraine, almost all other counties that surround Russian and Ukraine, their citizens are not traveling as they used to,” he added.
The conflict has also affected the supply chain of stationery such as newsprint and agricultural consumables, which are bought from Ukraine via South Africa.
Travel and tourism contributed 4,1 percent to Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product in 2020, which represented over US$620 million.
Compared to 2019, the contribution of travel and tourism to the economy of Zimbabwe experienced a significant drop due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The sector has embarked on an aggressive domestic tourism marketing drive following the launch of the ZimBho campaign in 2020, which has helped improve domestic travel.
The positive recovery is being enhanced by improved accessibility of tourism products and destination route connectivity in terms of domestic and international transportation.
For example, Qatar Airways commenced flights into Zimbabwe in August last year, while MACK Air of Botswana started servicing the Kasane-Victoria Falls route on May 1 last year.
Low-cost airline FastJet has scheduled flights that connect Victoria Falls to the Kruger National Park via Mpumalanga.
Falcon Air Safaris, a subsidiary of the District Development Fund, is now servicing Hwange Airport, while efforts to refurbish the Chapoto (in Kanyemba) and Binga aerodromes to support geographical spread of tourism are underway.
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