By Dorah Banda and Patrick Botha
Hospitality service providers in Nkhata Bay have expressed worry over the stagnation of their businesses most of which rely on foreign tourists due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Butterfly Lodge is one of the hospitality places in the district which has been temporarily shut down as the number of tourists patronizing the facility has been drastically going down since Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) in March, 2020.
Speaking Wednesday in an interview, the manager for Butterfly Lodge, Innocent Phiri said Coronavirus which is a global health concern has put his business on a stand still due to measures put in place to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
“We cannot do anything, business has drastically gone down as we do not have clients as we used to do as such we are officially shut down as a company.
“You may wish to know that many of the lodges in Nkhata Bay largely rely on foreign tourists,” Phiri said.
Phiri said the lodge used to have 20 bookings in a month but now the situation is different as tourists started cancelling bookings immediately after learning about the spread of Coronavirus.
He further said the company has since suspended 21 of its employees because it cannot manage to raise money for wages due to financial instability.
“We used to have 27 employees at this place but currently we are remaining with only six employees for them just to clean and keep the place in shape. Even the managers whom we employed from other countries have since returned home,” he said.
Phiri then appealed to government to remove bills and taxes that the hospitality service providers pay until the pandemic is over.
Manager for Chikale Beach Resort (CBR), Josephina Imani said the pandemic is a big blow as business at the resort has been brought down to its knees.
“We had a number of conference bookings but all have been cancelled. We had already prepared for the coming Easter festivities and the resort was fully booked for that but all of them have been cancelled,” Imani said.
CBR and Butterfly hospitality service providers are the most preferred and well known exciting tourism places in Nkhata Bay District.
