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Oliver Kazunga
Senior Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has commended the Government over its recent decision to allow visitors to enter the country without the requirement to produce polymerase chain reaction(PCR) tests and Covid-19 vaccination cards.
Last month, the Cabinet lifted all the remaining Covid-19 containment measures including restrictions at ports of entry and mandatory wearing of face masks, but vaccination activities were continuing.
This came after the World Health Organisation (WHO) last month announced that Covid-19 no longer constituted a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”.
Zimbabwe like the rest of the world was affected by the pandemic that killed millions of people across the globe.
Despite the respiratory infection’s adversarial effects, Zimbabwe successfully managed Covid with the country hailed across the world as one of the best Covid-19 management cases.
In an interview following the gazetting of Statutory Instrument 102 of 2023, ZTA head of corporate affairs Godfrey Koti said: “For us obviously, as ZTA the gazetting of SI 102 of 2023 is something really good because the Covid-19 guidelines had already been lifted, there was nothing to officialise that.
“But through the SI, it’s now the official and what this does is it assists us also in receiving our visitors.”
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was first detected in China in December 2019 before spreading across the globe, WHO moved in with guidelines and protocols that saw countries imposing travel restrictions, and national lockdowns, among others and the tourism industry was the hardest hit on account of the above containment measures.
In 2021, global international tourist arrivals registered a four percent growth to 415 million while the tourism sector’s economic contribution rose to an estimated US$1,9 trillion from US$1,6 trillion the previous year.
International tourists across the globe reached 400 million in 2021 and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has indicated that although the above statistics moderately improved, the figures were below the pre-Covid-19 period.
“Remember people have been scared to travel because of the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and now that the ban has been lifted officially, people can travel freely and easily.
“But we are also still calling upon our operators to take matters of hygiene seriously. If anything happens to anyone we don’t want problems that matter or cause us to close and go back to where we were as far as Covid is concerned.
“Generally, we are very happy as the tourism sector and we look forward to receiving more visitors now that the ban has been lifted,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s tourism receipts reached US$580 million in the nine months to September 2022, reflecting a 137,7 percent spike from US$244 million realized over the same period the previous year.
The growth in receipts was attributed to increased efforts at promoting Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibition (MICE) tourism and relaxation of travel restrictions as the countries globally emerged from Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
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