Published on : Monday, March 18, 2019
The national average hotel occupancies increased by five percent to 53 percent from 48 percent recorded in 2017, as per the figures released by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority showed.
“A large fraction of this utilisation (82 percent) is made up of locals mainly on workshops and conferences.”
“Victoria Falls remains the only region with a low proportion of domestic clientele (25 percent) otherwise all regions registered over 60 percent of their clientele composition from locals”, reads the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), 2018 Tourism Performance Report.
The museums and monuments of Zimbabwe received 189 121 arrivals and of these, 178 951 representing 95 percent were domestic arrivals.
The national parks on the other hand, received 957 752 tourists and of these 438 561 tourists we domestic, making up 46 percent of the arrivals.
The ZTA stated that the compiled statistics showed that there was potential to increase domestic arrivals into national parks.
“More continued investment into marketing and awareness programmes is critical as people still have the stigma that tourism is a preserve of the elite. We together with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority have so far embarked on intensive domestic tourism awareness programmes in order to achieve this goal,” reads the report.
In the meantime, tourism estimated to have generated $1,050 billion in receipts from overseas visitors, marking a seven percent growth from $917 million in 2017.
In 2018, Zimbabwe recorded 2.6 million foreign tourist arrivals, 6 percent up from 2.4 million received in 2017. The arrival growth was propelled by the notable growth in arrivals from all source regions and key markets with the exception of the Americas.
Since 2017, tourist arrivals from international markets have increased by 49 percent from 318 751 in 2016 to 515 440 in 2018.
“Though we are still to reach the 1999 performance (an all-time high in terms of overseas tourist arrivals, 597 010), the increase was quite significant and signalling a renewed interest on the destination.”