US$300m tourism investments in 9 months

PLAYERS in the tourism sector spent a combined US$306,7 million on new investments in the nine months of the year.

The tourism sector is a low-hanging fruit for Zimbabwe’s economy given its potential to create massive job opportunities.

In order to bolster the sector’s recovery from the disruptive impact of Covid-19, the Government has introduced a number of incentives to ensure the sector regains lost ground and meets the US$5 billion industry target by 2025.

With further growth prospects envisaged for the industry following relaxation of Covid-19-induced travel restrictions, experts have stressed the need to drive increased investment in facilities in order to meet the demand of expected increased numbers.

According to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority’s Destination Zimbabwe’s Tourism Performance report for January to September 2022, significant investments are being made in growing the sector’s capacity.

During the Covid-19 period, several tourism facilities underwent renovations while some have embarked on room expansion.

“The tourism sector recorded a total of US$306,7 million in new investments. Most of the investments were in accommodation and motor vehicle hire,” reads part of the report.

Covid-19

“All in all, there was a 239 percent increase in new investments during the review period.”

During the corresponding period in 2019, only US$90,4 million investment was made.

The report said investments in accommodation was about $59 million compared to about $18 million in the corresponding period.

Motor vehicle hire had investments of about $45 million up from about $400 000 last year.

Hunting operations contributed $1,4million, boat cruise ($2,7million), non-consumptive safari operators ($2,4million ) and restaurant sector about $154 million.

The report highlighted that the highest growth in lodge occupancies for the period under review was recorded for the Victoria Falls region (25 percent) followed by Hwange at 19 percent.

“Occupancies for the Victoria Falls region were largely a result of domestic tourists travelling on purposes of business (conferences and workshops) and to a smaller extent for purposes of leisure,” it said.

Victoria Falls

“The Hwange region like the Victoria Falls, has been on a recovery path, which has been hedged by the domestic market travelling as groups on purposes of leisure. Demand for accommodation in lodges was also driven by the limited number of hotels in the region, which tends to narrow down choice of accommodation.”

Domestic entries into national parks recorded an increase of 96 percent from 143 385 in 2021 to 281 576 in 2022.

“Matabeleland North and Mashonaland West recorded the highest number of domestic parks entries by virtue of having the highest number of national parks,” reads part of the report.

Matopos National Park

A total of 271 007 people visited Matabeleland North parks of which 134 927 were domestic and 136 080 foreign.

Matabeleland North’s Main camp had 10 713 domestic and 9 818 foreign entries while the Rainforest recorded 63 635 domestic and 74 850 foreign visitors.

Robins saw 1 128 domestic and 1 988 foreign entries, Sinamatella (1 548 domestic and 1 941 foreign) and Zambezi registered 57 669 for domestic and 47 282 foreign entries.

Matabeleland South, which has one national park – Matopos, saw 34 327 domestic entries and 4 493 foreign.-chronicle.co.zw