Vic Falls fully booked for Xmas

THE country's premier tourism resort town of Victoria Falls is teeming with visitors ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays this week and next week.
Most hotels, resorts and lodges in the town are almost or already full as visitors started arriving just over a week ago.
Rates at the hotels and resorts are ranging from about US$60 to US$180 on bed and breakfast basis and in some instances dinner, bed and breakfast basis.
An official at one of the leading hotels in the town, the Elephant Hills said on Sunday the holiday period was shaping up to be a busy one for the resort town.
"Our holiday period started on the 10th but it has really picked up this week after most locals received their salaries. We are fully booked from December 26 to January 3 and at the moment we are averaging 92 to 95 percent in bookings.
"The highest number of visitors that we have received are locals constituting about 60 percent of people that have come through and the remainder are those people coming from the region and international markets," the official said.
Visitors from the region, the official said were predominantly from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia.
He said activity and traffic into the resort town had been boosted by a number of factors.
"We have a festival promotion that is currently underway and we are also expecting a number of musicians to fly in during the week and next week," the official said.
Apart from the hotels, resorts and lodges, tour operators and other service providers in the town are also recording brisk business as most visitors engage in different activities in the resort town.
Mr Gordon Mukanganwa, the operating officer of Tourism Services Zimbabwe, a subsidiary of Rainbow Tourism Group that specialises in destination management, said business was picking up.
"Most of our local visitors do not book ahead, it is only when they get here that they start thinking about the activities that they want to take part in," he said.
Apart from visiting the falls, there are a wide range of activities that visitors can partake in such as boat cruises on the Zambezi, elephant back safaris, game drives and whitewater rafting.
Other activities include bunji jumping, Flight of Angels over the falls in a helicopter, game walks and culture village, which are packages offered by Tourism Services Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, the national airline, Air Zimbabwe, is reportedly failing to cope with tourist travel demands between Harare and Victoria Falls and Victoria Falls and Johannesburg this festive season.
Inbound Tour Operators' Association of Zimbabwe president Mr Tich Mudzonga told New Ziana over the weekend that domestic and foreign tourists had difficulties travelling to Victoria Falls, the country's main tourist resort.
"I can confirm flights from both routes are fully booked at the moment. Locals can use road transport but most prefer to fly to Victoria Falls," he said.
He said they had appealed to the airline to bring on board a bigger aircraft, which caters for more travellers at any given time.
"The airline is aware tourists would be deprived hence our appeal for a bigger plane such as the Boeing 767 which carries a considerable number of passengers," Mr Madzonga said.
He said tour operators were enjoying brisk business this festive season as compared to the same period last year.
"Business is much better than last year, we have recorded an increase of more than 30 percent," he said. He said they had also recorded an upsurge in domestic tourists.
"Locals have disposable income and are able to take up holidays as compared to last year," said Mr Mudzonga.