The country’s biggest tourism site, the mighty Mosi-oa-tunya Victoria Falls which is among the seven natural wonders of the world has already started attracting visitors a week after being opened by republican president Edgar Lungu.
The Victoria falls has already attracted 1,719 (about 2,000) local tourists as of 21 May, 2020. This is barely a week after the re-opening of the site.
Victoria falls site manager, John Zulu during an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, elaborated that most of the local tourists visiting the site are coming in from within Livingstone, Lusaka , Kitwe, Ndola and other parts of the country.
Zulu also stated that among the estimated number of tourists visiting the site are three Non-Zambian nationals said to have come into the country from South Africa before the closure of airports.
Zulu added that the site management team have put in place preventive measures as well as a special surveillance team, ensuring that tourists are being screened for Corona virus even before purchasing of ticket for entry to the site. Some of the measures are that all tourists allowed access are masked up and are sanitizing of hands.
“Quite a number of monitoring points have been put up to ensure that tourists keep sanitizing and washing of hands and also to ensure that physical distancing is maintained, only 200 tourists are allowed to be at the site every two hours.”
The site manager further stated that operation hours of the Falls have since been reduced by three hours. Before the closure due to covid 19, the standard operating hours were from 06 AM to 6PM, but since the reopening operation hours are now from 08 AM to 5PM.
The income from the Victoria Falls has undoubtedly been affected seeing that airports have been closed and no international tourists are coming into the country at the moment. The charge for Zambian citizens at the Falls is only K12 for adults and K6 for children. For Non-Zambian citizens, the charge is $20 for adults and $10 for children.
The site manager called on local tourists to take time where possible to visit the local spectacle. It is in fact quite strange that some Zambian citizens manage to visit foreign based sites but have never taken time to visit one of the Seven wonders of the world which is located within the country, but tourists from across the world have been seen flying into the country from as far as Europe, Asia and America’s just to see the beauty of the MOSI-O-TUNYA.
The Victoria falls is one of the world’s greatest sheet of falling water and is significant worldwide for its exceptional and geomorphological features and outstanding beauty attribute to it. The site since it’s discovery has been the biggest tourism site in Zambia and remain a to be huge income and numbers driver in Zambias tourism sector.
