ZIMBABWE’S NYAGA REGION HARD HIT BY HOTEL CLOSURE
(Posted 04th May 2017)
‘We need help my friend, all the help we can get. You wrote several excellent articles last year about your visit to the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and my colleagues and I hope you can again highlight the beauty of our country and the attractions we have. Zimbabwe is not just Victoria Falls or Lake Kariba, the Nyanga region is one of the most scenic in Zimbabwe and we hope tourists will return so that the Inn on Rupurara can reopen and others can avoid closure‘ said a regular contributor from Harare to this blog, though preferring anonymity before adding: ‘Please also ask all your fellow writers who came to Zimbabwe last year and the tour operators and travel agents who were invited to Sanganai over the past years, to help us with promoting and selling Zimbabwe. I thank you most sincerely!‘.
(A scenic view of the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe)
The news that the famous Inn on Rupurara has closed down has sent shockwaves through the minds of Zimbabwe’s friends here in East Africa who have been helping to give visibility and help promote the Nyaga / Mutare / Vumba region of the country and have in several cases been sending tourists there.
Gordon Addams, who is also the Chairperson of ‘Best of Zimbabwe‘ and personally known to this correspondent, issued the following statement about the closure of the Inn:
Start quote
‘Dear Friends in the travel trade
After 20 years of service to the travelling public of Zimbabwe and the world, Inn On Rupurara at Nyanga has closed its doors and ceased operating with effect from Thursday, April 27. This was the direct result of a number of years of unprofitable operation, brought about by the substantial decline in tourism in the Eastern Highlands over the past 15 or so years. It has become impossible to continue to sustain operations as the supplementary funding that has been inputted during recent years is no longer available. The operating company, Inn On Rupurara (Pvt) Ltd, has been placed in liquidation and the matter is now in the hands of Mrs Theresa Grimmel.
I would like to offer my personal thanks to the many people in the travel trade, in Zimbabwe and all over the world, who have given support and encouragement to Inn On Rupurara over these past 20 years. It has been a remarkable product and it is greatly regretted that matters have come to this point, but I don’t need to remind anyone in the trade of the serious situation facing hospitality operators in the Eastern Highlands over a long period of time.
If you have any queries you may make contact with the liquidator, T Grimmel, Trivade (Pvt)Ltd, 26, Cambridge Road, Avondale, Harare. Tel . 333213/307594/336587 or 0774177153
Please join me in paying tribute to all the people who made Inn On Rupurara what it was over the two decades in which it operated as one of the finest establishments of its kind in this country, including guests, the travel trade, management and staff and the people who created and ran the hotel‘.
End quote
The development fills me personally with great sadness as Zimbabwe is a wonderful country with great national parks, great attractions and warm and friendly people. This is not the time to politic about that Southern Africa country but to pull out all stops and give the Zimbabwe tourism industry a helping hand, give them added visibility and write about individual travel experiences to showcase to the world that Zimbabwe is worth visiting!
Links to the articles written last year are available below:
https://atcnews.org/2016/06/12/zimbabwes-eastern-highlands-africas-latest-adventure-destination/
https://atcnews.org/2016/06/13/zimbabwes-eastern-highlands-continue-to-amaze/
https://atcnews.org/2016/06/16/zimbabwe-tourism-seeking-to-reclaim-lost-ground/
