Abstract:The market of tourists with disabilities consists of a sizeable percentage of total tourism and is rapidly growing globally but little is known about tour guides experiences with them. These tourists with disabilities seem to have less holiday offers thereby reducing the frequency of tour guide encounters with them. While most tourism literature supports tour guides and their contribution to tourist experience, very little research is done in developing countries to show experiences of tour guides with tourists with disabilities. There is a knowledge gap of how the interactions between the guide and tourists with disabilities participating in the guided tours influence the tour guides' experience. Using face to face interviews and focus group discussions with tour guides the study sought to establish people with disabilities types of holidays, concerns they raise during tours and challenges encountered by tour guides when touring with PwD. Non-probability, namely convenience and judgemental sampling methods were followed to pick tour guides from museums and national parks. Study results revealed the activities that tour guides are offering people with disabilities, guides' own choice of activities for tourists with disabilities and the challenges faced by tour guides in the provision of those activities. The study concludes that the guiding industry has inadequate information about tourists with disabilities and thus is failing to fully serve the market. Lastly the study provides a set of recommendations that can be used by the tour guiding industry in order to effectively serve the market of tourists with disabilities.
It is evident from literature that the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the world economiesto its ‘knees’. No industry has gone untouched by the effects of this pandemic. Globally there has beenan adverse impact on travel which is backbone of the hotel industry. This study focuses on exploringthe impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on Zimbabwean hotel sector. The objectives of thestudy focused on investigating the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on hotel occupancy and revenue andproposing strategies that can be implemented for recovery post the pandemic. The study adopted amixed method approach, semi-structured questionnaires were used to gather data from 29 (3-5 star)
hotel management across the various major tourism cities in Zimbabwe. Findings reveal that the Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on hotel occupancy and revenue. Occupancy and revenue
have dropped. Strategies have been employed by hotel to cope with the adverse impact of reducedoccupancy and revenue, these include working with minimal staff to avoid increases exposure, closingother parts of the hotel to reduce operational cost and operating on take out bases. It can be concludedthat hotels in Zimbabwe are not prepared for pandemics like Covid-19. It is therefore recommendedthat disaster management plans relating to pandemics be developed and implemented by hotels.
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