The Impact of COVID-19 on Rural Tourism Enterprises and Their Future Growth Prospects in Zimbabwe

Tourism in Zimbabwe is one of the anchor sectors of the economy alongside mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. The impact of this pandemic has been felt strongly in rural destinations, which largely rely on drive-through tourists. This study assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural enterprises and assesses their future growth prospects in Zimbabwe. It adopted a mixed method approach and used a survey and in-depth interviews to collect primary data from (90 participants. The participants were drawn from three case studies. Data from the survey questionnaires were analysed using IBM SPSS v26 as the computational statistical tool. Thematic content analysis was applied on the data from key informant interviews. The study found that the COVID-19 pandemic has further dampened both international and domestic tourists, with rural community enterprises/destinations which feed off the travel supply chain from mainstream tourism resorts being the worst affected. It also found that the rural tourism enterprises were reluctant to engage in digital marketing and, thus, lost out on their ability to reach many potential travellers broadly. The need to amplify the participation of rural enterprises in digital spaces, thus, emerged as one of the key strategies to build resilience in the wake of the pandemic and enable their future growth.