Zimbabwe's once main source of foreign currency, the Tourism and distribution sector declined by 13 percent, mainly owing to negative growth in the distribution sub-sector.

In presenting his Mid-term Monetary Policy statement to the media late last week, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor, Gideon Gono indicated the tourism sub-sector has, however been on the mend since 2006.

"Tourist arrival statistics up to the third quarter of 2007depicted a 25 percent growth, compared to the same period in 2006," hints Gono.

In January this year, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) board chairman, Shingi Munyeza indicated the country requires nearly US$1 billion to increase accommodation in the tourism sector within the next five years.

In a report- Visitor Arrivals by Source Market- 2007, tourist traffic from Europe had plunged to 76 435 last year from 96 849 registered in 2006 while traffic from the US had fallen from 44 746 to 33 897 visitors.

In the past years that have seen Zimbabwe go through an economic recession, to a larger extent there has been no development in the local tourism industry especially considering the infrastructure. A number of lodges and hotels around the country are being turned into other businesses.

In terms of hotel utilisation, bed and room occupancy for the third quarter of 2007 increased from 23 percent to 30 percent and 33 percent to 41 percent, respectively, compared to the same period in 2006.

Gono says the increase in tourist arrivals and ultimately the tourism sector is attributable to aggressive country image building programmes by the whole tourism fraternity since the year before last year, supported by the general peace and stability prevailing in the country.

Due to poor relations with western countries, President Mugabe and his government launched the 'Look East Policy' about 4 years back, in an effort to lure Asian tourists to Zimbabwe. However, the number of tourist arrivals from Asian countries is also reported to be dwindling.

In 2001, the tourism industry was operating at occupancy levels of about 6 percent to 65 percent. The international and regional market accounted for roughly 60 percent of the tourism industry.

Of this, about two thirds were made up of international tourists and one third of regional tourists.

"On the export sector developments, total receipts for the tourism as declared on Forms TR1 and TR2 for the year 2007amounted to US$49,332,036.56 representing a decline of 17percent compared to US$59,209,858.44 for the same period in 2006," said the RBZ governor.

According to the RBZ, however, the figure represents a 45 percent Form TR 1 compliance level of designated tourism facilities.

Generally, there has been a downfall in the hunting receipts last year as compared to 2006. The poor performance in the industry is due to the high incidents of under declaration by Safari operators, general decline of trophy quality due to increased cases of rampant poaching and continued effects of negative publicity and travel bans which have resulted in numerous cancellations of hunting bookings.

Zimbabwe's vital export sectors mainly; agricultural, mining, manufacturing and tourism have been crippled by unrest and political interference, starving the country of the much needed hard currency.

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