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Leonard Ncube, [email protected]

VICTORIA Falls City Council has partnered with CBZ Bank and a Swiss developer to build a 7-star hotel in the resort city.

The city’s mayor Councillor Somvelo Dlamini told Chronicle that designs for the ambitious project have been done while a piece of land has been identified.

Work is now underway to finalise some internal processes at central Government and local authority levels.

No budget has been finalized yet as planning is ongoing, according to Cllr Dlamini, who was not at liberty to disclose details about the Swiss company and the partnership. 

He, however, said the city was on a rapid development and growth trajectory in line with the country’s drive towards becoming an upper middle-income economy by 2030.

“There is a lot of development that is coming to the city and as we speak, we have partnered with CBZ and a Swiss company to come and build a 7-star hotel here in Victoria Falls.

“Plans are underway and once approved the project will kickstart and construction of the hotel will begin,” said the Mayor.

He said land was identified behind Victoria Falls Hotel, between the railway line and Zambezi River gorges. At the moment, Victoria Falls, which is Zimbabwe’s tourism capital has only two 5-star hotels.

This comes as Cabinet recently approved the implementation of the Masuwe Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project, which will have state-of-the-art facilities, including 5-star hotel and conference sfacilities, following a feasibility study that found the scheme to be highly profitable.

The Mosi-oa-Tunya Development Company was tasked with implementation of the Masuwe SEZ project. The Cabinet approval has paved way for implementation of the Masuwe SEZ project, which Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu has said needs to be speedily actioned since a consultant had been engaged. 

In terms of Masuwe city scope, Government earmarks to have a multi-million dollar 4-star hotel, a 5 000-seater conference centre, medical centre, a golf estate and shopping mall.

Tourism players have said Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls in particular, faces a critical shortage of rooms and conferencing facilities, which presents a low-hanging fruit for investment. 

Since the coming in of the Second Republic, significant developments have been made in tourism infrastructure through partnerships, with a number of hotels and lodges having been built. However, a majority of them have less than 100 rooms each. 

Cllr Dlamini said besides creating employment for locals, the project will change the face of the city. He was speaking soon after a recent tour of the Victoria Falls Hospital by the Ministry of Health and Child Care and said the city needs modern infrastructure to attract investors.

“There is a piece of land that has been identified for this hotel and plans are underway. Once approved by Cabinet they will come to council. Designs have been done and have been shown to us as we wait for approval by the department of planning,” said Clr Dlamini. 

“For now, we don’t have figures yet because we are still on the planning stages. So, we are going to engage the investor and then engage Government,” he said.

Tourism is one of the key economic drivers in the country alongside mining, agriculture, and manufacturing, and infrastructure development in the sectors is one of the crucial elements as the Government implements the National Development Strategy (NDS1), which builds momentum towards towards Vision 2030. — @ncubeleon