The ManicaPost
Freedom Mupanedemo Post Correspondent
The Zimbabwe tourism industry enters the decisive festive season and it is this time of the year that players should start reviewing their pricing regime in order to reap the full proceeds that come with merry making when everyone thinks of holidaying.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive Karikoga Kaseke recently bemoaned high hotel beds prices saying Zimbabwe could rank among the world’s most expensive destination in terms of accommodation.
“I went to some country recently where I booked in a 5-star hotel and paid a bill of $53 all inclusive. I was shocked and thought they had made a mistake in their calculations but they reaffirmed the figure. This was when I realised that as a country, we need to do something to review our prices if we are not to earn a bad name as the world’s most expensive tourist detention,” Kaseke told a tourism indaba recently.
According to the ZTA, Zimbabwe’s average room occupancy rate for the first quarter of 2016 dropped to 36 percent from 38 percent recorded during the same period last year, signaling how tourists were finding it draining to book a hotel in the country.
But tourist arrivals for the first quarter of 2016 increased by 16% to 450 572 compared to 387 557 in the same period in 2015 with the ZTA citing increased arrivals from all source regions, except for Oceania.
However, ZTA highlighted that though there was an increase in tourist arrivals into the country, not all of them ended up in hotels as many, especially those from Africa, resorted to very cheap sources of accommodation in lodges as well as sharing with friends or relatives.
And with the festive mood slowly gathering pace, hospitality industry players seem to be correcting the deterrent pricing regime by offering discounts among other enticing packages in a bid to encourage tourists to take up rooms in conventional hotels.
Leading the pack in offering discounts is the Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG) which is offering up to 65 percent discount in some of its hotel rooms while the Cresta group is offering a 63 percent discount.
“We have a lot of other packages that we are working on to make every moment an enjoyable and memorable one for the festive season, including giving all our facilities a major facelift. We are still finalising work on some of the packages before we roll them out,” said RTG corporate communications manager, Pride Khumbula.
Tourism Employees and Tour Operators Association president Clement Mukwasi said this festive season was promising to be better with a number of tourists already making inquiries and bookings.
He said tourism players had introduced a two-tier pricing system in order to promote domestic tourism.
“For the last few months, the country has been seized with issues about the easy of doing business and in the tourism industry, we have come up with a two-tier pricing regime whereby we have special rates for locals and a separate rate for foreigners. We are trying to promote domestic tourism as well so we have come up with special rates for local tourists while we have slightly higher but competitive rates for international tourists,” he said.
Mukwasi said the move was paying dividends and many tourists were making bookings in hotels.
“In the resort area of Victoria Falls, there is already pressure with most hotels and activities already fully booked. This festive season is promising to be better than last year in the business sense,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) president George Manyumwa said players in the industry would hold an annual congress later this month to review the year and map the way forward.
“We will be reviewing our tourism year and make recommendations on what we should do in future in order to increase the number of tourists coming into this beautiful destination. One obvious issue that will top the agenda is the issue of our prices. We want to make sure that we become very competitive as a destination regionally,” he said.
Manyumwa said they would continue pushing Government to scrap the 15 percent tax on accommodation for foreign visitors in a bid to make the destination more attractive.
Zimbabwe Tourism Council (ZTC) president Francis Ngwenya said South Africa contributes 30 percent of foreign tourists in the country, hence the need to come up with attractive prices with the rand facing a major slump against the US dollar.
“With the rand slumping against the US dollar, we need to come up with strategies that make us continue get tourists from South Africa, our major source market,” said Ngwenya recently.
The tourism industry is working on achieving a 5 billion tourism economy by the year 2020.
Work towards this vision saw Government committing resources to sprucing up all the country’s airports with a whopping $150 million having been channeled towards the Victoria Falls International Airport.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe recently completed work on the Victoria Falls Airport and with tourism premised on air transport, the new Victoria Falls Airport, with a new 4km long and 60 metres wide runway which can accommodate wide bodied aircraft such as B747, B777, Airbus A340 and A380 among others, tourism is expected to take a new dimension. — Zimpapers Syndication.
