Leonard Ncube — Bulawayo Bureau
THE country's tourism industry is poised for a major turnaround amid positive growth in arrivals and bookings, which has seen the sector's employment levels rising above pre-Covid-19 figures.
The global Covid-19 pandemic literally shut down to whole industry after countries imposed travel ban between 2020 and 2022.
As a result, thousands of jobs were lost while some operators also closed.
However, arrivals and bookings started picking up post Covid-19 lockdown and new job opportunities opened up.
In Zimbabwe, President Mnangagwa launched the Tourism Growth and Recovery Strategy in 2020 with the objective of providing support to domestic tourism and support to the local industry.
Government set a US$5 billion target for the sector by 2025 and authorities have said this has been achieved.
Tourism is one of the key contributors to the Gross Domestic Product alongside agriculture and mining and the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry officials have said the sector will soon surpass the other two.
In an interview in Victoria Falls after a National Employment Council (NEC) for Tourism workshop, Tourism Employers Association president, Mrs Barbara Murasiranwa-Hughes, said workers that lost jobs during the Covid-19 era were not laid off but opted for voluntary termination of contracts due to the crisis.
"We are now at more than 80 percent of what we were in terms of employment in 2019 and most companies are back to normal levels," she said.
"The industry is now growing. Our company had over 700 workers before Covid-19 and this went down to 410 through voluntary departure but now we are back at over 700.
"Tourism is one of the high paying industries," said Mrs Murasiranwa-Hughes.
Commenting on concerns about casualisation of labour where shop-floor workers remain in short-term contracts that are renewed regularly, Mrs Murasiranwa-Hughes said that was because tourism is seasonal.
"So, until the seasonality nature of tourism ends, that kind of employment contract will continue because we still have to look after our employees and also ensure business is sound," she said.
NEC Tourism secretary general, Mr Nomore Nhema, also said the sector is growing.
"The tourism industry is growing and new facilities are being built. In 2019 the hospitality and tourism had 7 000 and now it is at 9 000. In the next two or three years we expect to be about 15 000," he said.
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"The catering sector has 16 000 and so the whole industry we are looking at over 25 000 employees currently."
He said the NEC will investigate issues of casualisation of labour.
"The law provides that employees must be employed under a contract and does not allow casualisation. We are going to investigate to make sure employers comply and after four years an employee must become permanent," he said.
Mr Nhema said the sector NEC has 320 registered members. Meanwhile, NEC Tourism legal advisor, Mr Cosam Gohori, has implored employers and employees to manage industrial relations properly and continue to contribute significantly.
He said existence of good relations between employer and employees contributes more income.
