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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) says the future of the country’s tourism sector is bright despite the prevailing devastating effects of Covid-19 pandemic.

Due to the Covid-19 travel restrictions and global lockdown measures, the tourism sector across the globe has been the hardest hit as players have lost potential revenues.

Zimbabwe has not been spared from the effects with some operators reported to have closed down leaving thousands of people in the sector jobless.

Speaking during a webinar on the future of the tourism industry last Friday, ZTA acting chief executive officer Mr Givemore Chidzidzi said despite the negative effects of the calamity, the country’s tourism was geared to regain lost ground.

“As ZTA, we always see a bright future even in the thick of things like this. As an authority our role is to facilitate, regulate and to market this destination and we will play our role.

“We are with the industry but will also not lose sight of the fact that we are a regulator. So, we want to urge players that let’s play the resilience we always talk about,” he said.

Mr Chidzidzi said the tourism industry was hyper-sensitive and even if anything little goes wrong, the sector suffers while at times it is the slowest to recover.

“This is unlike other sectors. The industry is very sensitive and it needs to be treated in that manner and as an authority we are always there to give technical professional advice but we need to ensure that we are always not found on the other side.

“As tourism industry, we are very compliant and we urge all operators to be compliant especially the protocols and guidelines that are in place.

“Regarding the tourism industry, we are seeing that there is hope especially in the domestic tourism and like we are saying few things have to be in place for the domestic industry to pick up,” he said.
ZTA, Mr Chidzidzi said, was working on rolling out a robust domestic tourism recovery strategy working closely with private sector players.

“We are just waiting for certain fundamentals to be in place, then obviously we can enjoy ourselves while we wait for the regional and international traffic,” said Mr Chidzidzi.
Concrete recovery measures are needed after the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) estimated that in 2020, global international tourist arrivals could decline between 20 percent and 30 percent.

In Zimbabwe, the tourism sector is one of the major economic centrepieces contributing significantly to the Gross Domestic Product and the fiscus through employment creation and foreign currency generation.

“This year hasn’t been a good year because investors cannot come physically for starters. We are maintaining discussions with potential investors over the digital platforms.

“Right now with investors it’s like a wait and see kind of situation because those that were planning to come into the country to do certain projects here, they are just hanging in there,” he said.

“But our role is just to try keep them interested so that when things normalise they can come and move in.”

Speaking at the same occasion, Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe president Ms Winnie Muchanyuka said so far there was no monetary attached to the damage caused by Covid-19 to the tourism sector.

“But there are businesses in the tourism industry out there that have closed completely. If I can talk about the airlines people are sitting at home, there is nothing you can go to the office for and globally they are laying off people on a daily basis.

“As the pandemic continues, more and more people will be affected and businesses lose kine every single day,” she said. — @okazunga