Victoria Falls Hotel highlights its diverse destination and resort at the World Travel Market (WTM) London 2022. Taking place at the ExCeL London convention centre which began on Monday. The event provides Victoria Falls Hotel with the ideal platform for engagement with key stakeholders, partners and customers in the UK market.
Marking 15 years of participation at one of the leading annual gatherings for the global travel industry, Victoria Falls Hotel is showcasing its robust pipeline across the southern African region.
The hotel was opened in 1904 to accommodate passengers on the newly built National Railways of Zimbabwe railway, part of the planned Cape to Cairo Railway. Later it was a staging post for the BOACflying boat service between Southampton and South Africa. The hotel has accommodated royal visitors on several occasions, including King George VI and his family in April 1947.
The hotel has been the site of several important political meetings. In 1949 Roy Welensky organised a conference there to discuss the creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and in 1963, the Victoria Falls Conference at the hotel led to the breakup of the federation.
It hosted the 1975 Victoria Falls Conference to try to sort out Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence that followed the break-up of the Federation.
The hotel is surrounded by carefully tended tropical gardens, lily ponds and century-old shade trees. The guestrooms, including deluxe suites with views of the Zambezi River, gorges and spray from the Falls, are traditional in style. The panoramas also figure prominently during afternoon tea, which is served on Stanley Terrace, overlooking the Victoria Falls Bridge that links Zimbabwe to Zambia. For romantics, the hotel offers sunset river cruises and can arrange guided game drives, as well as helicopter and microlight flights over the Falls.
Farai Chimba, General Manager and President of the Hospitality Association Zimbabwe (Haz) said, “The hotels attendance has been since the early 2000’s with the participation in WTM used as a key event to interface with the second largest source market for the hotel.”
“We have had the opportunity to touch base again with our agents and potential new business after the travel restrictions in the past two years. The show has shown the recovery of the travel industry is promising and there are better times ahead as we embark on the road to recovery.” – concluded Chimba.
