FOLLOWING the lifting of a travel ban to Zimbabwe by both the Japanese and German Embassies, United Touring Company (Utc) is confident that tourism to the country will improve and has begun "to look at re-employing" staff members who had to be retrenched on July 1 this year.
Ananias Jindu, commercial manager for the Zimbabwean operation of Utc cautions that "it is a little too early" to begin making definite plans to re-employ the staff (30% were retrenched) but the lifting of the ban is a "very good sign".
"We are currently running our operations - including chauffeur drives, airport transfers, and game drives - at approximately 40% of the business we conducted before the unrest, but we expect things to improve."
Jindu does not expect this to happen overnight though. "People are only now beginning to plan holidays to Southern Africa and it may be a few months before there is a drastic improvement."
(Adéle Mackenzie)
