Photo taken on Aug. 6, 2020 shows Victoria Falls at the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. (Xinhua/Wanda)
The tourism sector in Zimbabwe has continued to suffer due to the COVID-19 pandemic as tourist arrivals in the southern African country declined by 40 percent to 375,799 in 2021.
HARARE, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Tourist arrivals to Zimbabwe declined by 40 percent to 375,799 in 2021 due to the impact of COVID-19, a senior government official said Thursday.
Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry deputy minister Barbra Rwodzi said visitors to Zimbabwe have been decreasing since 2019.
"The country witnessed a decline in tourist arrivals from 2,294,259 in 2019 to 630,369 in 2020. The negative trend further continued in 2021 as arrivals suffered a further downfall of 40 percent to 375,799," she said.
Rwodzi was speaking at the launch of the country's tourism satellite account (TSA), designed to measure the sector's contribution to the economy.
Rwodzi said the TSA report revealed that there is low consumption of domestic tourism in Zimbabwe.
"We are cognizant of the low consumption of domestic tourism and we need to do more to champion increased internal tourism," she said.
According to the TSA, Zimbabwe's tourism sector accounted for 4.25 percent of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with a value of 1.03 billion U.S. dollars in 2018.
In 2019, the sector accounted for 6.3 percent of GDP with a value of 1.23 billion dollars.
The data also shows that tourism accounted for 1.56 percent of national employment levels in 2018, with around 100,000 jobs supported and created. ■
