Hotel occupancy up at Vic Falls

Emmanuel Fundira, president of the Zimbabwe Council of Tourism told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the country would get massive spin-offs from the Soccer World Cup, the world’s most-watched sporting spectacle.

“Hotel occupancy and booking rates in Victoria Falls, Kariba and Bumi Hills has increased to 85 percent from 70 percent that was recored last week,” Fundira said. “We hope these figures will continue growing as the FIFA World Cup draws near.”

For example, Fundira said the five-star Victoria Falls Hotel, which has 161 rooms, is projecting to rake in US$8million to US$10million during the FIFA World Cup.

Victoria Falls, home to the world’s largest waterfall, was once a tourist magnet but years of political violence and economic collapse have sent holiday makers fleeing, while the few that have arrived over the past decade have chosen to stay across the Zambezi River on the Zambian side of the falls.

But Fundira said the tide was turning and that many tourists were flocking to the Zimbabwean side because Victoria Falls was only a 90-minute flight from Johannesburg and to also to get a better view of one of the world’s seven wonders.

Fundira said Zimbabwe, eager for economic benefits from the World Cup tournament, has over the past months been busy trying to spruce up tourist destinations and hotels in a bid to lure World Cup teams and visitors.

But Harare has however not been able to lure any of the countries taking part in the soccer tournament to use Zimbabwe as their temporary base with North Korea that had initially indicated it want to train in the southern African country deciding against doing so.

North Korea decided not to come to Zimbabwe apparently after protests from civil activists from Midlands and Matabeleland provinces where thousands of innocent civilians were killed during a counterinsurgency drive in the provinces by a Korean-trained Zimbabwean army brigade.

The southern African country’s tourism industry is picking up after suffering a downturn in the aftermath of President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic and often violent land redistribution exercise that attracted negative publicity for the country, spooking foreign tourists.

The decline has been staggering: 10 years ago, Zimbabwe drew 1.4 million tourists who generated US$400 million for the economy.

Last year, only 223,000 tourists came, generating only US$29.1 million dollars. But Fundira was upbeat that tourism that before the economic and political crisis was Zimbabwes fastest growing sector was on the path to recovery.