Livingstone Tourism Association – LTA Chairperson Rodney Sikumba says the second wave of the corona virus has slowed down tourist visits in Livingstone, with the industry survival now betting on government incentives.
Sikumba said the travel advisory information from the United Kingdom (UK) has suggested that Zambia is not a safe country to travel to now and that has given people an indication that the number of cases are high.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Sikumba said he is not sure how the industry will survive the second wave of Covid-19 but can only focus on making sure that businesses continue to run instead of making money as the industry awaits incentives from government.
“You plan this today, tomorrow your plans are out of the window, so we really don’t know what’s going to happen this year, all we are trying to do is keep the businesses running”, he said.
Sikumba said the association has come up with incentives to make the businesses more attractive for the locals to visit the tourist destinations such as removing Value Added Tax (VAT) on packaged tours, which include accommodation and activities in order to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 within businesses.
“A few things have been put in place such as the removal of renewal fees for 2021 and suspension of manager’s licenses for 2021, but we are looking at what more we can be given, and we are not talking about necessarily giving us incentives that go towards reducing the cost of doing business, but incentives that will make it more attractive for the locals to visit Livingstone”, he said.
He however said that these incentives would not mean anything if visitors are not travelling as that is the only way businesses would be able to bring in money and continue operating.
Sikumba also said that the association has written to the Ministry of Labour to allow them to put their staff on forced leave hoping that this will be dealt with quickly as it is expensive to keep staff who are not productive.
“In as much as we keep our staff, at-least government can look into giving us relief with regards to keeping staff on payroll for the duration”, he said.
He also mentioned that Zimbabwe has gone into a 30-day hard lockdown and this has made it difficult for anyone to travel adding that Botswana has also instituted a lockdown and South Africa is most likely to institute level 4 lockdown.
“Those are some of the gateways that we have into Zambia and Livingstone in particular. With those places shut, we don’t see ourselves receiving any tangible number of visitors, be it international or from the region”, he said.
He has implored members of the association to plan for the worst and make sure that if a vaccine reaches Africa, they should be able to access it and manage the visitors coming in. So, we look forward to how the vaccine will pan out, but in the absence of a vaccine being successfully administered, it remains a big challenge to focus on future business.
