Online Reporter
Innocent Madonko recently in VICTORIA FALLS
IT’S 5pm on a wintry Friday evening in May and the viewing deck, pool deck and the balconies of the Buffalo bar and MaKuwa-Kuwa Restaurant at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge are teeming with tourists from all over the world.
The sunset is magnificent and tourists are regaling each other with tales of their various escapades at the different leisure activities dotted around Victoria Falls.
Above the cacophony of excitable chatter and clatter of trays filled to the brim with all manner of drinks as waiters and waitresses jostle to serve their guests is an unmistakable anticipation about what is about to happen. Victoria Falls Safari Lodge is located on a plateau overlooking a waterhole deep within the Victoria Falls National Park.
It attracts a variety of wildlife including elephant, buffalo, kudu, waterbuck, impala as well as a large number of bird species.
Just as this writer takes his seat on a bar stool at a vantage point with the best view of the waterhole, excitement reaches fever pitch as a herd of buffalo descends on the hole. They are soon joined by impalas and other small game including marabou storks. As the evening wears on and dinner is served, a large herd of elephants can be seen under the floodlights strategically positioned at the watering hole.
Guests at the safari lodge are a cosmopolitan mix of nationalities. Apart from the usual source markets of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, there is a fairly huge contingent from Asia, particularly China, some South Africans, Namibians and Batswana.
The lodge is filled to capacity despite it being off peak period for the tourism sector (peak season runs from July to November). Victoria Falls Safari Lodge has 100 plus rooms between its three product offerings — the exclusive 5-star 20-room Safari Club offering luxurious amenities such as butler-style concierge service.
Legendary former Manchester United Football Club manager Sir Alex Ferguson stayed at the Club when he visited Victoria Falls recently while famous South African musician PJ. Powers was at the Safari Lodge this past weekend.
There is also the 72-room, sunset facing Victoria Falls Safari Lodge which has been voted the country’s best safari lodge for 26 years by the Association of Zimbabwe Travel Agents. Ideal for families and small close-knit groups, the lodge also has two and three-bedroom Suites (4-star) featuring a spacious lounge. For the lower end market, the Lodge has 31 three star Lokuthula Lodges.
Head of sales and marketing at Africa Albida, parent company for Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, Mr Anald Musonza, is clearly a delighted man as he narrates their change in fortunes since the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020 when tourism took a nasty knock.
He said the pandemic also forced them to tweak their business model from sorely focusing on leisure travellers hence their decision to branch out into the MICE tourism (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions).
To this end, Africa Albida completed its Queen Nandi Place which was designed to host upmarket conferences and events in March.
“Covid brought its challenges,” said Mr Musonza. “People were not travelling and that necessitated us to re-look at our business model to say what and who is travelling. If you look back, during Covid, people were travelling in groups to address the pandemic.
“If you look at all the international events that have been happening in Harare and here in Victoria Falls, you are talking of huge numbers of people. That also brings in the airlines which ferry people and us here with our world famous Boma restaurant (which sits 320 people) where delegates can unwind and dine after a day of conferencing. So, we also saw the need to be in the space where we bring in this MICE business as part of our core business supply chain in our business model”.
To ensure that the MICE business does not interfere with the leisure travellers and tourists, Mr Musonza said they were targeting the upper end of the market and they would only vigorously pursue the business during the tourism off-peak season.
Elsewhere, around Victoria Falls, business appears to be booming with tourists engaged in various activities such as boat cruises, elephant rides, helicopter rides over the falls (Flight of Angels) and visits to the rainforest (where there is always a queue).
Operators are optimistic of a major resurgence in fortunes with comparisons to the 2018 record figures. In 2018, Zimbabwe saw a peak in tourist arrivals, reaching 2,6 million visitors. This surge in arrivals was accompanied by a record US$1,25 billion in tourism receipts. The country’s tourism industry was a significant contributor to the economy, accounting for 4.25 percent of Gross Domestic Product. “2018 was our best year as a country and we are slowly edging towards those numbers,” said Mr Musonza.
“We are not yet there but I think, just off the cuff, we are almost 80-90 percent of the 2018 numbers and we can see the growth is coming. More and more tourists are coming into our country and into our destination. So, we look forward to full recovery. Within the coming years, surely we should be attaining the 2018 numbers”.
He said the upturn in tourist arrivals had also seen the number of airlines flying into Victoria Falls increasing. “Besides our local airline partners Fastjet, we have also seen quite a number of international airlines coming into the destination….Uganda Air recently launched their Kampala-Lusaka-Harare. We have Rwanda Air coming, we’ve the usual . . . Ethiopian Airlines, Kenyan Airways. To me airlines are a barometer, where there is no business, they don’t fly. A prime example is Fastjet. There are times when they would put four airlines into Victoria Falls a day. To me this is a sign that the industry is on the path to recovery. Zimbabwe as a destination is in demand. People are going to Kariba, Victoria Falls, Eastern Highlands, Mana Pools, Hwange etc,” said Mr Musonza.
Government, through the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, has embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign to lure tourists into the country through initiatives such as ZimBho and use of embassies in foreign countries.
The Second Republic under President Mnangagwa has prioritised economic diplomacy through its mantras, “Zimbabwe is open for business and friend to all, enemy to none”. To this end, it has also refurbished infrastructure such as airports to world standards, in the process attracting international airlines.
Local tourism operators and airlines have also been collaborating to make the Zimbabwean experience seamless for foreign tourists.
Fastjet corporate affairs manager Mr Nunurai Ndawana said they were working closely with local operators such as Albida to boost tourist arrivals.
“As you know our Victoria Falls-Kruger route is extremely seasonal and as we are getting into the peak season right now, we have also responded by adding additional capacity.
We are currently on three times a week between Kruger and Victoria Falls but as demand grows you will find that in some weeks, it might be five times a week. It’s one of our initiatives as an airline to be responsive and support the tourism industry”.
Mr Ndawana said flight frequencies might also be increased on their Johannesburg-Victoria Falls route as the tourism peak season approaches.
The airline currently services the Harare-Johannesburg, Bulawayo-Johannesburg, Harare-Bulawayo, Harare-Victoria Falls, Harare-Lusaka and Victoria Falls-Kruger routes.
