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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter

THE exit of The Kingdom Hotel in Victoria Falls from the Makasa Sun (Private) Limited premises is a huge setback for Victoria Falls, which will likely make the destination expensive due to the shortage of rooms, tourism experts say.

The African Sun Limited-owned Kingdom Hotel exited the premises last week citing the lease tenure disagreement with the property owner – First Capital Bank (FCB), the new owners of the Makasa Casino building.

First Capital Bank

The hotel has 294 rooms and the Great Enclosure conference facility, making it the biggest in Victoria Falls.

Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe president, Mr Wengai Nhau, said the facility needs to be re-opened with speed to prevent shortage of rooms.

“This came at a wrong time when we would have wanted to focus on the recovery of destination Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe,” he said. 

“With the room stock that we have lost, we believe there will be a period before the takeover and those rooms will be off the market.

“We are coming out of Covid-19 and for now we might appear to have sufficient rooms but with the way the recovery is taking place, soon we will have a shortage,” said Mr Nhau. 

Mr Wengai Nhau

“We want this matter resolved so that the room inventory is back on the market because when we market, we package with the room stock in mind so if the rooms remain off the market, demand will be high and this might push the destination to be expensive,” he said.

Mr Nhau said according to the law of demand, the more properties there are, the cheaper the destination becomes.

He said hopes are high in the industry that the property will have a new operator soon so that tourism continues to enjoy the recovery trajectory. 

Mr Nhau said it is unfortunate that one of the market leaders, African Sun Hotels, being the leader in the hospitality business, pulled out of the investment.

“There is going to be impact in terms of room stock in Victoria Falls. In the transition we are definitely going to have a bit of an issue with room stock and inventory that is available in Victoria Falls, but we also believe that will be short-lived,” he said.

“The facility is strategically located at a very prime location to an extent that it won’t be a long time before another investor takes up the lease and reopens the doors and we can have our 294 rooms on the market again.

“If we were to be asked what we wanted, we would have hoped for a situation whereby some compromise would have to be made by either side for the sake of destination Victoria Falls and product that we have and recovery efforts that we are currently seized with,” said Mr Nhau.

Victoria Falls has slightly above 2 000 rooms in total.

The country is pushing for more properties through partnerships with the private sector as it targets a US$5 billion tourism industry by 2025.

President Mnangagwa in August 2020 launched the National Tourism Growth and Recovery Strategy whose vision is to stir the sector back to   growth in the wake of the impact of Covid-19.

President Mnangagwa

Compared to other hotels, Kingdom had more family-friendly facilities including more family rooms than any other Victoria Falls hotel, and child-friendly facilities on the poolside, as well as supporting downstream industry. -@ncubeleon