Zim records sharp drop in visitors
Zimbabwe recorded a 77 percent drop in visitors for the year 2020 largely as a result of the outbreak of the Covid- 19 pandemic throughout that year.
Tourism took a heavy battering globally at the hands of Covid-19 which included restricted movement across the world as nations shut their borders and plunged into different stages of lockdown to contain the pandemic.
Zimbabwe was not spared either.
According to Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT), in the year 2020 the country had 567,766 visitors, a significant drop from the 2,466,183 who visited Zimbabwe in 2019.
“The bulk of visitors to Zimbabwe, 43 percent, were in-transit to other countries.
The visitors used road (496,923) to cross into the countries compared to 70,686 who used air as their mode of entry,” Zimstat said.
There was a drop from 1,108,334 in 2019 to 257,338 in 2020 in the number of visitors who cited Africa as their continent of last permanent residence. The number of visitors with permanent residence in Africa is 80 percent of all arriving visitors.
Tourism, an industry largely dependent on travel, has been hit hard by the Covid-19 mitigation measures centered around crowd avoidance and non-essential travel bans being taken around the world.
Covid-19 came at a time when the local tourism sector was already in a spot of bother as evidenced by a 11 percent decline in tourist’s arrivals for 2019 compared to the same period in 2018.
Before COVID-19, travel and tourism had become one of the most important sectors of the world economy, accounting for 10 percent of global GDP and creating more than 320 million jobs worldwide.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of industry and Commerce Sekai Nzenza lamented the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national trade and tourism recently.
“The pandemic had affected the country’s trade and tourism sector, which usually relies on foreign tourists and business meetings for revenue generation,” she said.
As such in a statement Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu said the local tourism has potential to recover from effects of the global pandemic as evidenced by its resilience and resoluteness.
“I commend tourism players who have remained resolute and resilient in the wake of the Covid -19 pandemic which has seen us defying odds to register tourism investments worth US$ 97.6 million from January 2021 to date in new tourism products,” said Minister Ndlovu.
“I have no doubt that our sector will thus emerge stronger and ready to grow exponentially when Covid-19 finally turns the corner.” – BH24.
The proportion of imports from South Africa increased to 43.7 percent in November 2021
compared to 41.5 percent in October of the same year-eBusiness Weekly
