By David Martin – SANF 04 no 07
An African diplomat in early December 2003 tried to make a reservation for Christmas or New Year in the leading hotels at Victoria Falls and the Great Zimbabwe monument in Zimbabwe. To his amazement, he was told that they were all fully booked over this Christian festive season.
How could this be, he reasoned? He, and many other would-be visitors to Zimbabwe are fed a steady diet in the media as to how Zimbabwe’s economy, including tourism, has all but collapsed. Many people, even in the region, have begun to believe this.
With over 90 percent of the Zimbabwean economy, including the tourism sector, still in the hands of the old white colonial business, the diplomat wondered whether the right of admission had been denied to him and his family on the basis of race? Or might it just be that Zimbabwe’s economy had not collapsed, he asked himself?
The reason behind the full house was very simple; historically, Zimbabweans have booked their hotel accommodation up to a year in advance for seasonal holidays. And the vast bulk of those making the bookings are traditionally locals keen to leave the cities and towns for the countryside during the summer break. What was notable this year was the racial diversity at the resorts.
Following the Christmas break, January and February are classified as low season months before bookings once again pick up for Easter. An added fillip for the hotel industry comes during the three school holidays a year when parents take their children to the resorts.
Had the diplomat extended his horizons further he would have found that the Bvumba, Gonarezhou National Park, Chimanimani and Inyanga in Zimbabwe’s lush eastern highlands, Hwange National Park south of Victoria Falls, Lake Kariba and Mana Pools on the Zambezi river, were all reporting similar advance bookings.
Two carloads of people including one from South Africa, turned up at a private house in the eastern highlands on New Year’s eve looking for somewhere to sleep, as accommodation in the area was full. And the manager of the White Horse Inn south of Mutare, David Graham, who was also fully booked over the holidays, recounted his past experience that visitors often do not believe the hotels are full and insist that he finds them rooms.
Only the urban hotels that rely on business visitors were quiet over Christmas and many of these were offering “specials” to lure the holiday-makers.
Had the diplomat dug even deeper he would have found that the filling stations were selling petrol and diesel in a normal manner, at competitive prices, and that Zimbabwe has become the cheapest destination in the world!
In part, this cost-benefit is a result of the external propaganda war against the country. The official rate for the US$ is Zimbabwe $834, but the unofficial rate is nearer Z$5,500!
It is illegal to change money at the unofficial rate. But many people do and some of the banking institutions pay this rate behind closed doors while advertising $834 to the US$.
One leading tourism group, Landela Safaris, reported two of their three resorts at Victoria Falls and Kariba were fully booked. Local residents at these resorts were charged Z$105,000 per person per night.
This amount, using the official rate, converts to US$126 per night. But at the unofficial rate the conversion come out at a mere US$18 — and that includes three meals.
In contrast, visitors from outside southern Africa are expected to pay US$95 in convertible currency. But their extras such as laundry, drinks and meals are quoted in Z$ making this still a cheap destination.
For those eating in restaurants, the rates on the unofficial money market make them also very cheap. Harare’s most expensive restaurant charges Z$80,000 for a four-course meal. At the unofficial rate that is less than US$14 per head. Most restaurants charge less than one-third of that, and takeaways less than one-fifth.
Curio sellers can also be paid in Z$, as can petrol or diesel at the pumps.
At the Leopard Rock Hotel in Bvumba that has the finest golf course in the country, the manager, Jenny Horsefield, said that external enquiries for the eastern highlands, particularly from South Africa, were “picking up”.
She confirmed the historical nature of Zimbabwe’s tourism; “when people check out they book for next year”. On the last weekend in December, she hosted a wedding from South Africa, and her rates this year for foreigners are US$70 or Rand 650 for bed only with meals payable in Z$.
Some of the leading hotel and safari companies are owned by former Rhodesian soldiers, or in one case a former tobacco sanctions breaker in the days of Ian Smith’s government, who once fought against black majority rule. Thus, the attitudes that one hears from them are not surprising.
Why were more people not coming to Zimbabwe, one safari company was asked? “The same old reasons,” replied their marketing director. “People are not interested in coming here while the same government is in power.”
At the Leopard Rock and many other hotels in Zimbabwe, the message had not yet been absorbed about the recent deal with China giving Zimbabwe “approved tourist destination” status for Chinese visitors, as South Africa also has. China’s burgeoning wealthy visit only those countries on the approved list.
This system is not dissimilar to that operated in Europe, whereby travel agencies only promote destinations covered by international insurance guarantees, and these can be denied as a kind of sanction, as has happened with Zimbabwe, thus drying up the package tours from, among others, Australia, UK, Germany and Italy.
Some 10,000 Chinese a year currently visit Zimbabwe. Now, according to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), this number is set to at least double. One white farmer in the eastern highlands was amazed to see two busloads of Chinese visitors at the Troutbeck Inn in Inyanga.
However, the largely white-owned tourist industry remains tied to its traditional markets in Europe, Australia and North America. These operators, who have been comfortably fully booked with their local clientele, were slow to react to regional markets, and even slower to react to the obvious potential of the Far East.
They had full houses this Christmas and New Year but they also need to wake up to the trend of the future. (SARDC)
