The tourism business has showed signs of recovery recently, especially for popular destinations like Victoria Falls, Kariba and the Eastern Highlands. Driving along the Harare-Beitbridge and Harare-Chirundu highways one cannot fail to notice the increase in the number of South African registered 4×4 vehicles towing boats and other camping accessories – en route to Kariba or Mana Pools.
In the past, tourism contributed significantly to the GDP of Zimbabwe, and created many employment and business opportunities for locals in the 1990s. But it has faced a great decline since 2000. A number of Zimbabwean tourist attractions are marketed online by South African companies and they have created an impression to some international tourists that they are located in South Africa.
Zimbabwean tourist companies need to take advantage of the availability of high bandwidth communication technologies, such as GPRS and 3G, across the country in order to promote e-commerce services to potential tourists across the globe.
Progress stymied
E-tourism has always seemed like a no-brainer for Zimbabwe, as money can be paid direct to hotels and suppliers. But obstacles like the lack of access to communication in remote areas, uncertain electricity availability, high cost of bandwidth, the lack of integrated, real-time reservation systems and local online payment gateways have thus far stymied progress.
However, with the arrival of voice and data-oriented telecommunications in some remote tourist areas, there is more access to information via websites by foreign tourists looking for a good holiday resort. In other parts of Africa, arrival of cheaper bandwidth has lessened the barriers to communication and the world’s Online Travel Agencies like Expedia are showing a real interest in the continent.
Ten years ago no-one was talking about online tourism. The tourism trade tended to focus on going to big trade events like World Tourism Markets, with brochures for B2B selling, and doing support advertising in key markets. The travel agents tended to suggest where people went and to some extent picked the destinations.
56% booked online
As a result, a great deal of the revenues went to large, international hotel chains and not much of the money was retained locally. Now 56% of travel globally is booked online and the rise of the Online Travel Agents has been unstoppable. These OTAs, as they are known in the trade, include Expedia, Travelocity, Lastminute.com and Bookings.com – who have significant market share in Africa. Expedia has actually opened an office to focus on Africa.
In 2005, less than 2% of tourism revenues in Africa came from online booking. In 2010, buoyed by the World Cup, that percentage rose to 5% and looks set to go to somewhere between 15-20% by 2015. The World Cup may have been a one-off boost but it accelerated the growth of online tourism in South Africa. 50% of Americans read an online review before booking internationally and that’s usually either Trip Advisor or Facebook. (Trip Advisor is now owned by Expedia).
Most international travellers have credit cards and increasingly expect to be able to book online for anything from the smallest travel lodge to the largest hotel chain. So what are the barriers? The missing piece was e-commerce. There used to be no route for doing online transactions in other countries in Africa including Zimbabwe.
Online distribution by the OTAs requires a reservation system that offers real-time availability. OTAs won’t do business with you unless you have that. In Zimbabwe there are few tourist resorts offering e-commerce reservation and booking services. Shearwater Adventures in Victoria Falls offer online booking and payment services, which have attracted a large number of tourists over the years.
Marketing skills
The second missing piece was the ability and tools to do online marketing. The companies needed marketing skills, especially with social media. Today’s tourist wants to hear from other travellers (through Facebook and Trip Advisor) and are not that interested in what the hotel has to say. For example, hotel chains Africa Sun and Cresta Hotels have invested in websites and Facebook groups where reviews are easily accessible to prospective tourists.
Now that the data oriented communication and cheaper bandwidth is slowly becoming available throughout the country, telcos and ISPs need to focus specifically on those industry sectors that are most likely to make the online transition fastest.
It’s easy to become obsessed with banks as corporate customers, and thereby to miss the business generation potential of the tourism sector. It must be possible in the near future for a heritage site in Binga to be marketed online to the world and attract visitors.
Post published in: Tech