2008 Trends and Statistics of Tourism in Zimbabwe

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 In 2008, although there was a severe economic crisis in Zimbabwe which had serious implications in the country's tourism sector, the number of tourist who visited the country during that time increased as compared to that of the previous year. International tourist arrivals reached 924 million from 908 million in 2007. This represents a growth of 2% in international arrivals. However constraints of the extremely volatile world economy including financial crisis, commodity and oil price rises and sharp exchange rate fluctuations slowed tourism demand significantly through the year. The last six months of 2008 particularly showed an abrupt shift in trends with international tourist showing a rather negative growth. The 5% growth between January and June had a pulling effect to the overall annual growth in tourist arrivals giving way to the 2% growth in 2008. The year 2008 recorded a 22% decline in tourist arrivals. The adverse performance was partly due to harsh media reports citing political violence in the country, especially after the March Harmonized Elections and also the cholera outbreak in the country during the second half of the year. To an extent the global financial crisis also affected the overseas market

Arrivals from the overseas market increased by 11% form 215 380 in 2007 to 223 427 in 2008. This was mainly driven by the growth in arrivals from the Americas (9%), Asia (11%) and Oceania (9%). There was, however, a drop in tourist arrivals from Europe (1%) and the Middle East (10%). 
Mainland Africa had a 24% decline in arrivals from 2 290 608 in 2007 to 1 732 167 in 2008. This was partly due to a 31% decline in arrivals from South Africa which is Zimbabwe’s largest African market.
The SADC region contributed 1 683 988 arrivals into the country down from 2 193 030 arrivals in 2007. This represents a 23% decline in SADC arrivals into Zimbabwe. Other African countries contributed 48 179 arrivals in 2008 as compared to 94 578 in 2007 a 49% decline.

The market share for the overseas market stood at 11% in 2008 as compared to 9% in 2007. Europe contributed 48.4% of the overseas arrivals into the country as compared to 50.7% in 2007. Europe remains the greatest source of overseas tourists into Zimbabwe. Asia contributed a share of 21% of the overseas arrivals this being a 1.4% increase from 19.6% in 2007. The Americas, on the third place, contributed 19.4% of the overseas market share up from 18.5% in the previous year.