Harare – Hotelier, African Sun Limited (ASL) on Thursday said the new dispensation positively influenced the increase in foreign arrivals which soared by 17 percent in the five months period to May 31, 2018 compared to the same period last year. International arrivals to Zimbabwe grew by an average of 15 percent whilst Africa arrivals continued on the recovery trend registering a strong growth of 22 percent. Consequent to the growth in arrivals occupancy levels went up to53 percent from 43 percent last year while an 8 percent growth was recorded in ADR from $89 reported last year to $9. Afsun said these positive indicators contributed to a 30 percent growth in revenue to $20.97 million from the $16.74 million achieved last year. CE Ed Shangwa said the local market improved in performance, albeit from a low base as it remains under pressure from low liquidity, foreign currency shortages and poor infrastructure. He said ASL has embarked on a product movement journey with numerous projects underway to improve shareholder value in the future. “The Holiday Inn Mutare refurbishments are expected to be completed by the end of July 2018 while additional conferencing capacity at Hwange safari Lodge is expected to be completed by the 4^th quarter of 2018. “Caribbea Bay Resort and Great Zimbabwe Hotel have interior concepts and mock up rooms in progress while ASL’s premier brand, The Victoria Falls Hotels, is scheduled to commence its second phase refurbishment in the 4^th quarter of 2018. He said the hotel is already benefiting from the period leading to the 2018 harmonised elections slated for July 30. “As anticipated, our hotel operations have already started benefitting from election activities with our city hotels being the main beneficiaries with some observer teams already in-house. “We have also received inquiries at resort hotels from election monitoring groups which we anticipate to finalize this first week of July. Overall the election outlook from our business perspective looks promising and we have no reason to believe the business will be anything but positive,” he said. Going forward, Shangwa said ASL expect leisure and conferencing business to continue to drive occupancy in all our hotels during the peak season and full year performance and finance costs are expected to be above both budget and same period last year should the current momentum continue. He said that cost management initiatives are already in place to align to revenue performance and finance costs are expected to continue on a downward trend due to steady repayments. Shangwa added that ASL continues to be optimistic about the future, leveraging on our people’s combined-100years- plus of service excellence through hospitality training and further drive occupancies, revenues and profits across all markets.