The Covid-19 pandemic on cultural heritage tourism in Zimbabwe: Post-Covid-19 recovery strategies
Keywords:
COVID-19 pandemic, Cultural heritage tourism, post-COVID-19 recovery strategy, National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, and World heritage siteAbstract
This article interrogates how the world’s cultural and heritage tourism destinations’ performance was affected following the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019. Various studies have been undertaken on the impacts of Covid-19 and post recovering strategies for cultural heritage tourism, especially in developed destinations with little attention given to developing destinations like Zimbabwe. This research assesses the impact of Covid-19 on tangible cultural and heritage tourism in Zimbabwe. It also proffers post-Covid-19 pandemic strategies for the segment under National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ). A qualitative approach was adopted and online interviews were conducted with frontline staff. Thematic analysis was employed to report the results. The results revealed that the employment of core employees was stable with salary delays, forced paid leave, and/or no transport allowances. On the other hand, most casual employees’ contracts were terminated. Loss of tourism revenue, deferment of projects, and cancellation of marketing activities, vandalism, and increased poaching were reported among five regions of the NMMZ. After the relaxation of lockdown measures, NMMZ started operating while adhering to WHO Covid-19 health and safety regulations. This brought a slight positive change in domestic tourists with a huge negative change in international tourists. The study, therefore, recommends social media usage, diversification, and branding (SDB) destination recovery strategy as well as promotion of local travel to sustain cultural heritage tourism in Zimbabwe.
References
Abbas, J., Mubeen, R., Lorember, P. T., Raza, S. Mamirkulova, G. 2021. Exploring the impact of Covid-19 on tourism: transformational potential and implications for a sustainable recovery of the travel and leisure industry. Current research in Behavioural Sciences, 2, 1-11.
Adi. W, 2018. Tourism Diversification and its implications for smart specialisation school of marketing and management, Sustainability, 10, 319; doi:10.3390/su10020319.
Artsy News (2020, April 10). Museums across the U.S., facing the effects of Covid-19, laid off staff or closed permanently. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-museums-facing-effects-covid-19-laid-staff-closed-permanently.
Ashworth, G. 1995. Heritage, tourism and Europe: A European future for a European past? In D. Hebert (ed.) Heritage, Tourism and Society, 68-84.
Bauer, A. et al. 2021. Integrating youth mental health into cash transfer programmes in response to the Covid-19 crisis in low-income and middleincome countries. Lancet Psychiatry, 8(4), 340-346.
Black, E. 2020. Airlines have grounded more than 16,000 planes – here’s a look at what it takes to park them. CNBC. Retrieved 28 June, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/01/how-airlines-found-parking-forthousands-of-planes-amid-coronavirus.html.
Buhalis, D. 2019. Technology in tourism-from information communication technologies to eTourism and smart tourism towards ambient intelligence tourism: A perspective article”, Tourism Review, 75(1). https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-06-2019-0258.
Chigora F, Mutambara E, Ndlovu J, Maurura J and Zvavahera P. 2020. Towards establishing Zimbabwe Tourism destination brand equity variables through sustainable community involvement: African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 19, 5, 1094-1110.
Chhabra, D., Healy, R. and Sills, E. 2003. Staged authenticity and heritage tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 30(3): 702–719.
Cresswell, J. W. and Plano, C. W. 2011. Designing and conducting mixed method research. 2nd edition, Sage Thousand Oaks, CA.
Dolesh, R. and Colman, A. 2020. Coronavirus: What impact will Covid-19 have on parks and recreation? National Recreation and Park Association, 4 March. Retrieved January 15, 2022, from https://www.nrpa.org/blog/coronavirus-what-impact-will-covid-19-have-on-parks-and-recreation/.
Dube, K., Nhamo, G. and Chikodzi, D. 2020. Covid-19 cripples global restaurant and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2020.1773416.
Elgammal, I. and Refaat, H. 2021. ‘Heritage Tourism and Covid-19: Turning the Crisis into Opportunity within the Egyptian Context’, In V. G. Gowreesunkar,.S. W. Maingi, H. Roy and Micera, R. (Eds.) Tourism destination management in a post-pandemic context (Tourism Security-Safety and Post Conflict Destinations) (pp. 37-48). Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley.
Flew, T. and Kirkwood, K. 2020. The impact of Covid-19 on cultural tourism: Art, culture and communication in four regional sites of Queensland, Australia. Media International Australia, (Covid-19 Special Issue) 1-5.
Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M. 2020. Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of Covid-19, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29 (1): 1-20.
Hargrove, C.M. 2002. Heritage tourism. CRM Magazine, 25(1), 10-11.
Howie, F. 2000. Establishing the common ground: Tourism, ordinary places, grey-areas and environmental quality in Edinburg, Scotland. In G. Richards and D. Hall (Eds.) Tourism and sustainable community development (pp. 101-118). London: Routledge.
Hughes, H. 2000. Arts, entertainment and tourism. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
Itzkowitz, L. 2020. How the Coronavirus Pandemic is affecting museums. Architectural Digest. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/covid-19-impact-on-museums.
Kim, W. G. and Park, S. A. 2017. Social media review rating versus traditional customer satisfaction: Which one has more incremental predictive power in explaining hotel performance? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 29(2): 784–802.
Kheira, T. and Anissa, B. 2021. Impact of Covid-19 on the tourism industry in Africa and recovery strategies: A case of Kenya, Journal of Economics and Applied Statistics, 18(1): 29-4420.
Khan, K. I. 2021. The effect of Covid-19 on the hospitality industry: The implication for open innovation. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 7(1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7010030.
Khan, R. 2020. Locked down not locked out- assessing the digital response of museums to Covid-19. The London School of Economics and Political Science Review of books.
Laesser, C. et al. 2020. 75 years of Tourism Review: Survival by transformation: A perspective article, Tourism Review, 75, 1, 4-7
Lisebo, A. T. and Ojakorotu, V. 2021. Muddling through destination marketing: Experiences from the North West province South Africa: African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 223-814.7
McKercher, B., Ho, P.S.Y. and du Cros, H. 2004. Attributes of popular cultural attractions in Hong Kong. Annals of Tourism Research, 31 (2): 393-407.
Musavengane, R., Leonard, L. and Mureyani, S. (2020). Doing tourism in Southern Africa amid the coronavirus pandemic: Navigating political, socioeconomic and environmental inequalities. Development Southern Africa, 1-17.
National Trust for Preservation. 2008. What is heritage tourism? Retrieved September, 25, 2022, from https://foresiteconsultingllc.com/what-isheritage-tourism/ Nuryanti, W. 1996. Heritage and postmodern tourism. Annals
of Tourism Research, 23(2): 249-260.
Rahman, M. K., Gazi, M. A. I., Bhuiyan, M. A. and Rahaman, M. A. 2021. Effect of Covid-19 pandemic on tourist travel risk and management perceptions. PloS ONE, 16(9): e0256486.
Richards, G. 2011. Creativity and tourism: The state of the art. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(4), 1225-1253.
Richards, G. 2006. Cultural tourism: Global and local perspectives. New York: The Haworth Press.
Shava, H and Chinyamurindi, W.T. 2018. Determinants of social media usage among a sample of rural South African youth, SA Journal of Information Management, 20, 1, 1-8. 21
Smith, M. K. 2009. Issue in cultural tourism studies. New York: Routledge
Sorokowski P., Groyecka A., Kowal M., Sorokowska A., Bialek M., & Lebuda, I. 2020. Can information about pandemics increase negative attitudes toward foreign groups? A case of Covid-19 outbreaks. Sustainability, 12(12), 1-10.
Timothy, D. J. and Boyd, S. W. (2006). World heritage sites in the Americas. In A. Leask & A. Fyall (Eds.). Managing world heritage sites (pp. 235–245). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
UNCTD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). 2021. Covid-19 and tourism update: Assessing the economic consequences. Retrieved March 04, 2021, from https://unctad.org/system/files/officialdocument/ditcinf2021d3en0.pdf.
UNESCO. 2003. Periodic report, Africa, World Heritage Reports 3. Paris. UNESCO
UNESCO. (2020, June 24) Culture and COVID-19: Impact and response tracker. Issue 11. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/issue_11_en_culture_covid- 19_tracker-6.pdf
UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation). 2020a. International tourist arrivals could fall by 20–30% in 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.unwto.org/news/international-tourism-arrivalscould-fallin-2020.
UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation). 2020c. 100% of global destinations now have Covid-19 travel restrictions. Retrieved December, 2021 from https://www.unwto.org/news/covid-19-travel-restrictions.
World Bank. (2020b). Tourism industry survey of South Africa: COVID-19 impact, mitigation and the future. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/648261588959603840/pdf/Touris m-Industry-Survey-of-South-Africa-COVID-19.
WHO (World Health Organisation). 2021. Africa steps up Omicron variant detection as Covid-19 cases rise in southern Africa. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://reliefweb.int/report/world/africa-steps-omicron-variant detection-covid19-cases-rise-southern-Africa
ZTA (Zimbabwe Tourism Authority) (2020 & 2021) Tourism trends statistics report final. Harare.
