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Patrick Chitumba Senior Reporter
INCESSANT rains that have been pounding the resort town of Victoria Falls in the past weeks have disrupted tourism activities amid indications that the industry has lost a quarter of its business through cancellation of bookings.
The resort town, popular for outdoor activities such as helicopter flights, bungee jumping, game drives and sunset boat cruises on the mighty Zambezi River has received more rains this year than in previous rainy seasons.
Shearwater public relations manager Clement Mukwasi told Business Chronicle that while the rains were good for farmers, they had led to reduced business performance across the board.
“While we appreciate that these rains benefit farmers a lot, we have lost significant business through cancellation of bookings,” said Mukwasi.
“Climate change is taking its toll on us but we are doing everything possible to ensure that whenever the skies are clear, we take advantage and enable the tourists to do the various activities.”
Steve Jonasi an official with Lion Encounter said the disruptions caused by rains had made it difficult for the operators to maintain the tight schedules that tourists have while in the resort town.
“The heavy rains over the last couple of months have caused a few disruptions to the tight schedules we need to maintain activities for our guests.
“Time and again we are forced to cancel bookings for activities and that is costly to us. While this is vismaior, the tour operators have found it morally right to reimburse the affected tourists but that means loss of potential revenue on our part,” he said.
Jonasi added that there had also been a number of instances in which clients had seen the pouring rain and decided that walking in the bush under such conditions would not be very enjoyable.
“The transportation of our clients to various activity centres has been severely affected. We need to cross a river in order to get to our concession, which, after heavy rains, becomes unsafe to cross for our guests,” he said.
Three weeks ago, four tourists were lucky to escape with minor injuries after a game drive vehicle they were in veered off the road and landed on its side after sliding in the mud.
There have also been a number of instances in which tourists have cancelled bookings after seeing torrential rains from their hotel balconies.
Online Reporter