Victoria Falls attracts US$64m new hotel investor

LAMCENT Capital, a local equity investment company will start constructing a 160-room hotel worth US$64 million in Victoria Falls early next year in a Build-Operate and Transfer partnership with the local authority.

From the day of groundbreaking, which Lamcent founder and chief executive Mr Lameck Tarupuwa said is scheduled for the first quarter next year, the project will take a maximum of 36 months to complete.

Lamcent Capital entered into a partnership with the Victoria Falls City Council for the project and will rope in Hilton, a multinational hotel brand and hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts, to run the business.

The tenure of the BOT is 50 years. Lamcent Capital approached some local financiers for equity and debt financing and also applied to the Insurance and Pensions Commission to get prescribed asset status for the project.

Mr Tarupuwa said financial closure for the project is around 70 percent and all processes will be completed before the end of the year to pave way for groundbreaking and commencement of actual construction works.

The project already has Cabinet approval and is set to transform lives in Victoria Falls as it will employ about 1 000 people once commissioned with minimal disturbance to the natural environment as the proprietors are adopting a green technology approach.

In a recent interview at the recent Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo in Bulawayo, Mr Tarupuwa said the hotel will be located on a 3,2ha piece of land between Palm River Hotel and Azambezi Hotel.

Victoria Falls City Council

It will have a high-end product and river frontage with seven specialty restaurants, six river-facing chalets, and high-end shops giving tourists a one-stop shop experience.

“We are the promoters for the Victoria Falls Hotel, which we are going to build starting in the next six months. We signed a partnership agreement with the Victoria Falls City Council who are the owners of the land,” he said.

“The concession agreement will ensure that they will provide us with the land and as the promoters we build, operate, and hand it over to the council after the concession period, which is 50 years.

“The hotel will be 160 keys with seven specialty restaurants, six river-facing chalets, high-end products, and will have leisure facilities and high-end shops so there will be no need for clients to travel to the central business district.”

Mr Tarupuwa said Lamcent carried out market and financial feasibility studies looking at the sustainability of the market and net value of the business and the recommendation was that the project can set up a 200-key hotel.

“After the feasibility study, we went and met the Government through the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency so the project has received Cabinet approval,” he said.

“We agreed to look for a brand and we shortlisted 10 international ones and looked at their proposals and selected Hilton. We have signed agreements, which then allowed us to engage a technical team and architects.

“We have gone to the market and we are now looking for funding to merge with our funding.

“We are hopeful that we will get financial closure before the end of the year and in the first quarter we have to do ground breaking then we start the actual construction,” said Mr Tarupuwa.

“It’s a big project of US$64 million and will take between 24 and 36 months to complete and thereafter we will rope in our operator.”

Mr Tarupuwa said an environmental impact assessment has also been done considering Victoria Falls has a lot of sustainability issues especially as the destination is a UNESCO heritage site and the natural environment should be kept in its pristine form.

Unesco

“We tried to incorporate all regulations into our designs hence we managed to get EIA certification on the project. Our project is going to use less 20 percent electricity through solar, less 20 percent water through recycling,” he said.

The local industry value chain will also benefit with the hotel proprietors planning an out-grower farmers training to be able to supply the required horticulture produce.

As part of the agreement with the local authority, the hotel implementers will build two community halls at two local schools as part of corporate social responsibility, and the project, worth US$600 000, will be implemented concurrently with the construction of the hotel.

Mr Tarupuwa said the project dovetails the Government development agenda.

“It’s an exciting project and our small way of contributing towards the growth of the tourism and hospitality industry,” he said.

Image taken from Shutterstock

This is the first tourism project by the equity developer although the business has a huge presence in agriculture in the Tugwi Mukosi area, lithium mining, and real estate where it has rolled out 120 housing units in partnership with National Building Society, shopping malls construction and education sector where it has built five schools.

Once implemented, this will arguably become one of the major hotel projects with a complement of more than 100 rooms to be done in Victoria Falls in the last decade.

Victoria Falls City Council Town Clerk Mr Ronnie Dube recently confirmed the partnership.

He said the council was working on a local development plan around the project.

Victoria Falls was designated a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and work is underway to operationalise the concept through the Integrated Development Programme/Conceptual Development Framework for the Victoria Falls-Hwange-Binga SEZ whose idea is to integrate economic activities, catapult growth and improve livelihoods in the province.

The project speaks to the national development agenda that targets the transformation of the prime tourism destination into a world-class city and resort gains momentum.

Since the coming of the Second Republic, massive developments have taken place in Victoria Falls despite the dampening impact of the illegal sanctions.

Victoria Falls is a strategic destination whose operations have a huge bearing on the attainment of the Government’s US$5 billion tourism economy target by 2025, and Vision 2030 of achieving an upper middle-income society.

The Government plans to build Masue and Batoka satellite towns as part of the Victoria Falls Development Plan whose corridor comprises Masue Stateland, Batoka City, Mlibizi, Binga Centre, Sijalila, Hwange Hinterland and Gwayi-Shangani resort.-newsday