Accessibility of Zimbabwe tourism destinations: The role of the aviation sector

Abstract

There are growing fears that Zimbabwe and the various stakeholders in its tourism and aviation sectors are missing out on the potential benefits that may be derived from a more defined participation of the aviation sector towards improving destination accessibility in Zimbabwe. Therefore, this research sought to establish the current role which the aviation sector holds in improving the accessibility of Zimbabwean tourism destinations when compared to other countries mostly by focusing on the extent to which the aviation sector has committed itself towards fostering the accessibility through strategy formulations, partnerships with tourism establishments as well as regulatory frameworks. The study thus identified the benefits that accessibility to a destination which has improved and refined it. The researcher selected 2 government ministries and 7 organisations in the tourism and aviation sectors as the research units that are concerned with destination accessibility and air travel. These were the Ministry of Environment Climate Tourism and Hospitality industry, Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, Emirates Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines and South African Airlink and Halstead’s Aviation company. In this study the researcher utilised the descriptive research design to collect, analyse and present data in an effort to give a seamless view of the role played by the aviation sector in improving destination accessibility in Zimbabwe and the difficulties which it encounters in performing this role. Open-ended questionnaires and direct interviews were employed to collect primary data so as to determine opinions, attitudes, preferences and expectations of the targeted respondents. Qualitative and quantitative data were both collected and analysed by the researcher. Convenience sampling was mostly used in the research whereby respondents were selected based on their availability as the research was conducted in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic were most respondents were not available for fear of contracting or transmitting the lethal virus. The research uncovered that there is a lack of proper coordination between tourism and aviation authorities, an inadequacy of operational airports near tourism destination in all provinces, over concentration of development efforts on a few airports namely Harare R.G Mugabe, Bulawayo J.M Nkomo and Victoria Falls International airports, failure by the CAAZ to create policies and financial bailout programmes to protect local airlines from unfair external competition as well as to save them from avoidable bankruptcy and lastly limited financial resources on part of the Ministries in charge of the tourism and aviation sectors and also airlines were caught guilty of lacking proper organisational strategies aimed at improving accessibility in Zimbabwe as they were more focused towards their own individual goals such as profit making and growth. On the other hand, achievements included increased government investments in the aviation sector through infrastructure capacity building programmes like the expansion of Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls international airports, the reopening of the Gweru airport, opening up of the airspace indicated by the increasing number of airlines which either reintroduced or introduced flights into Zimbabwe such as Kenya and Ethiopian Airways introducing scheduled direct flight to Victoria Falls from their hubs and Qatar Airways connecting Doha, Lusaka and Harare by air. The organisations were recommended to coordinate their policy and strategy formulation. The government was recommended to reopen local regional airports to ease accessibility to remote and non-mainstream attractions. The researcher recommends future researches to be aimed at investigating data instruments which show the actual volumes of inbound tourists that come in by air only and their benefits to government as well tourism and aviation regulators.