Zimbabwe, Harare– A total of 33 000 tourists intending to visit the country
cancelled their visits during the first quarter of 2008 following travel
warnings issued by tourism source markets.
A report by Zimbabwe’s state controlled Sunday Mail revealed that a total of
33 000 cancellations had been recorded during the first quarter of the year.
“Japan and South Korea have reportedly joined the United Kingdom and America
in issuing travel warnings to their respective citizens with warnings from
the Commonwealth also contributing to cancellations from Italy and Spain,”
said the Sunday Mail.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke,
said Zimbabwe lost over 2 000 visitors from South Korea in the second
quarter of the year, which translates into the flight of a possible 4 000
bed nights, while 3 800 tourists expected from April to July translated to
some 7 600 bed nights were lost, as most of these tourists spend an average
two nights.
“The country’s largest hospitality group African Sun Limited said arrivals
during the six months to March had declined six percent from last year’s
growth of 17 percent. The group said they had cancellations of close to 10
000 rooms by foreigners just before the harmonised elections,” reported the
Sunday Mail.
Surprisingly Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) statistics indicate that the
tourism and distribution sector grew by an estimated 11 percent.
“Tourist arrivals recorded an 11 percent increase from 305 757 in the fist
quarter of 2007 to 340 810 recorded during the first quarter of 2008,
despite the negative publicity that the country is currently going through,”
said RBZ governor Gideon Gono while presenting his post election monetary
statement last week.
At its peak in 1998, tourism accounted for eight percent of gross domestic
product, 12. 5 percent of formal employment and about 11 percent of foreign
exchange earnings.
Post published in: News