The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has said their offices will be closed for 30 days due to the measures being implemented in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a statement, ZTA acting chief executive officer, Mr Givemore Chidzidzi said due to the currently imposed Covid-19 lockdown their offices will be closed.
“The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) wishes to inform its valued clients and stakeholders of measures being implemented in view of the Corona Virus Disease of 2019 (Covid-19). In line with the measures put in place by Government (SI 10 of 2021) to prevent the spread of the pandemic, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority Offices will be closed for 30 days from 05 January 2021,” said Mr Chidzidzi.
He added that all clients wishing to transact any business with the ZTA such as acquire relevant ZTA licenses and tourist information as well as make payments, are advised to do so online or visit their website. In addition, he said the inquires will be directed to the appropriate persons.
Mr Chidzidzi also noted that all ZTA facilitated meetings have been cancelled with immediate effect and where any meetings are deemed absolutely necessary, use of teleconferencing, Skype, Zoom and all other social media platforms is advised.
He added: “In the unlikely event that physical meetings are inevitable necessary measures will be taken to protect participants. In a bid to ensure continuity of business, the ZTA has put on standby mission critical staff to attend only to emergencies.”
Meanwhile, Silwane Tours and Safaris, and Silwane Nature Reserve founder and director, Mr Sikhawuliso Sibanda said the Covid-19 pandemic period has been a learning cave for most hospitality and tourism players.
Mr Sikhawuliso Sibanda
“Covid-19 pandemic period since last year has been a learning cave for all of us in the business community. Big or small we were affected by the invisible enemy and it became a bitter pill to swallow as we were caught by the pandemic unprepared,” said Mr Sibanda.
He added that in tourism they never had the contingent plans for such natural disasters in place.
Mr Sibanda said the tourism sector was assisted through meetings lead by the Minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Hon Mangaliso Nqobizitha Ndlovu and the Minister of State for Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Cde Judith Ncube where strategies of growing the sector were revisited.
He added: “The meetings also gave birth to the domestic tourism as a major area of investment. As we saw ourselves plunged into the Covid-19 pandemic it became easy to adjust to domestic tourism especially for Bulawayo operators who never enjoyed much international visitors.
Mr Sibanda also highlighted that as people from the diaspora did not manage to come home for the festive season, the operators had to adjust their prices in order to entice the local market.
He advised operators going forward to have well-rehearsed contingent plans that seek to address the eventualities of natural disasters and manmade disasters, as he said it would not be easy to keep on starting afresh when the industry is affected by crises.
