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A NUMBER of airlines have indicated that they will soon resume direct flights to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe’s prime tourist destination. The airlines suspended flights to Zimbabwe as part of measures to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Recently the British Airways (Comair) and South Africa’s Airlink confirmed that they are resuming flights to Victoria Falls soon. Comair announced that it is resuming daily return flights between Johannesburg and Victoria Fall next Thursday.

SA Airlink has not given a date but it has indicated that flights between Cape Town and Victoria Falls will resume soon.

Africa’s largest airline group, Ethiopian Airlines, local low-cost airline Fastjet and Mack Air of Botswana have since resumed direct flights to Victoria Falls.

The return of the airlines is a confirmation of confidence in destination Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe. The tourism industry was the worst-hit globally following the outbreak of Covid-19 as countries were forced to enforce travel restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Most airlines suspended flights and as such the tourism industry in countries like Zimbabwe which depended mostly on foreign tourists were seriously affected. Most hotels and lodges, in fact, closed because there was no business as a result of international and local travel restrictions.

Many countries have since relaxed travel restrictions hence many airlines are resuming flights. What is encouraging is that Zimbabwe is already enjoying increasing international tourist arrivals and a return of many international airlines.

Players in the tourism and hospitality industry should therefore, brace for a boom in tourism but should continue to promote domestic tourism despite the return of international tourists.

In a bid to boost domestic tourism, many operators were last year offering discounted accommodation rates and fees for other tourism activities for locals.

The industry had to turn to domestic tourism for quick revival hence the need to continue with the efforts to grow it despite the increasing international tourist arrivals.

Zimbabwe’s tourism industry had for years depended on international tourists from different corners of the globe but discovered the folly of this approach following the outbreak of the pandemic last year.

The tourism industries in big countries like China are dependent on domestic tourism and we also need to entice locals to spend quality time with their families at our hotels and lodges.

What this entails is that the accommodation rates and fees for other tourism activities must be affordable to the majority of locals.

Government has over the years bemoaned the low figures of locals visiting the country’s tourist destinations and has been urging the players in the industry to come up with affordable rates and fees for their products.

Government in 2014 launched a domestic tourism campaign aimed at enhancing communities’ participation in the sector. All these efforts are meant to boost domestic tourism so that the industry does not depend solely on international tourists as has been the case in the past.