The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has urged key players in the hospitality sector in Bulawayo to charge “reasonable prices” ahead of the forthcoming Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF).
Most hospitality facilities are trying to find their feet after sluggish business and are banking on the ZITF to rebound.
The event was cancelled last year because of Covid-19. Businesses are expecting to recoup losses this year, as the ZITF will make a return scheduled to run from 20 to 23 July under tight Covid-19 mitigation protocols.
ZTA spokesperson Mr Godfrey Koti, in an interview said hospitality players in the city must tailor package their services so that they attracted even the local tourist.
“We are very happy with the uptake of the tourism products, we are ecstatic that the ZITF is back. As far as pricing is concerned, we are constantly engaging with our players and our sector on ways to make the products better both from a pricing and experience perspective. So, it’s obviously one of those times where everyone wants to maximise and gain more but we have agreed that it will be done within a considerable amount of care for the consumers,” he said.
Mr Koti said ZTA was happy that most hospitality facilities were now fully booked ahead of the ZITF. He said ZTA was moving together with the owners of the properties on what should be done to make brisk business, cashing on the number of business visitors to the trade show case.
Mr Koti said they were also marketing Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) destination, which was an incentive for meetings, conferences and exhibitions, and ZITF was one such event.
“If you look at it (ZITF) really it’s one of those business hubs for Bulawayo so we are very delighted that it’s finally back. We are urging everybody who will be traveling to the city and exhibiting at the trade show case to take extra caution within the confines of the protocol and guidelines of the Covid-19 pandemic prevention measures.”
The Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) said the industry appreciated the importance of placing affordable rates for their services.
“As HAZ we applaud players for being always responsive to the market and for their current efforts in offering tailor-made and promotional offers to the market. This has been our message to our members that we ought to be price competitive and sensitive to reduced incomes as a result of Covid-19 pandemic.
“But Statutory Instrument 127 is seemingly having unintended consequences in the form of causing inflation in all the basket of currencies we are using as an economy. While the statute might have been well meant, we will urge caution and plead with Government to review some of its provision so that the stability that the economy has been enjoying is sustained,” said HAZ president Mr Clive Chinwada.
He acknowledged that lately, the level of activity in hotels has been encouraging and some had experienced record occupancies, but the demand was not yet evenly distributed throughout all major destinations.
Mr Chinwada said the hospitality industry would always seek to be price competitive but unfortunately suffered from being at the tail-end of the national economic value chain.
“As a service, we often pass on to the market that which we get as input costs in the form of taxes, licensing costs and the direct costs of the tangible products we offer. We have always been rational as a sector yet the intricate details of the cost structure of our industry and its pricing model is not well understood in the context of the competitiveness of the Zimbabwean economy at large.”
Mr Chinwada said there was need to offer stimulus to the sector and they were happy that Government had offered some tax incentives to try and help stimulate demand in the form of Value Added Tax exemptions to domestic tourists for food, accommodation and tourism services.
“We have ongoing dialogue with Government to improve the tax instruments currently in place so that the benefits these exemptions are meant to deliver are fully realised by the sector. We also continue to engage to explore possible direct financial stimulus which is badly needed especially by small scale operators who are quite a sizeable chunk of our industry,” he said.
