Zimbabwe’s tourist arrivals fell by 11% to 2,29 million in 2019 due to destination image issues, according to the country’s tourism authority.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) acting chief executive Givemore Chidzidzi said tourist arrivals dropped from all source regions, except for Middle East.
He was quoted by NewsDay as saying during a tourism indaba held in Bulawayo on Monday that tourists from Africa eased 9% to 1,9 million, Americas 16% to 99,826, Asia 20% to 90,358, Europe 20% to 184,903 and Oceania 16% to 35,637.
Visitors from Middle East, however, jumped 22% to 9 549.
“The year 2019 has been a difficult year for the tourism industry mainly attributable to destination image issues. (The drop) in arrivals was prompted by a fall in all source regions most notably in the overseas markets,” said Chidzidzi.
“What we now need to do is to address this gap that came up. So our preoccupation as the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority is now to arrest that decline, the 11% that we got in 2019, it has to quickly turn around.”
Political instability, economic recession and negative publicity had been hampering the growth of tourism in Zimbabwe.
The sector registered some growth in 2017 following the ouster of the now late President Robert Mugabe.
Meanwhile, Chidzidzi said national hotel occupancy was about 46% in 2019.
“The occupancies are also going down. Decline in occupancy levels was as a result of the harsh economic climate which has resulted in ever-increasing prices for the accommodation product against depleted discretionary incomes for domestic tourists who are the main consumers of hotel accommodation accounting for over 80% of hotel clientele,” he said.
