The first total solar eclipse of the millennium, which will cast a lunar shadow across southern Africa on 21 June, should already be brightening the region’s tourism industry after a year in the doldrums caused by political unrest in Zimbabwe.
But it looks like Zambia, its neighbour, will be the main beneficiary of this golden opportunity. President Mugabe’s policies have resulted in empty hotels across the country and there is scant chance that big-money tourists can be persuaded back in numbers to what could be one of the jewels of Africa.The last total eclipse, on 11 August last year, moved the moon’s shadow across parts of Europe at a speed of 2,000km per hour. The 2001 total eclipse, after starting on the Atlantic Ocean, will pass through central Angola, Zambia, northern Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar.”The best place will be in Angola but there are too many landmines to send tourists there, so we are planning to go to a farming area near Lusaka, the Zambian capital, where we are building a tented village for hundreds of tourists,” said a spokeswoman for Wild Africa Safaris, a tour operator in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Other groups will be accommodated along the Zambezi river which divides Zambia and Zimbabwe.Madagascar is also expected to enjoy an influx of tourists but Mozambique is set to lose out as infrastructure is poor in the area, which will move into darkness for three and a half minutes from 1.12pm (GMT).Tourism officials hope that the historic nature of the event will – literally – overshadow the bad publicity the region has suffered since land occupations began in Zimbabwe in February.

Sit-ins and violent attacks on 1,500 white-owned farms by liberation-war veterans commandeered by President Robert Mugabe have caused mass cancellations throughout the region.”The situation in the country has been a disaster for the tourism industry, especially for the indigenous professionals whose companies are generally the smallest and the first to suffer,” said one Zimbabwean black tour operator at Victoria Falls, who did not wish to be named.He said that, one day last week, only seven rooms were booked at the famous Victoria Falls Hotel, which is normally full at this time of year – the southern hemisphere summer season – and charges about £300 a night. Across the river in Livingstone, Zambia, a five-star Sun International hotel, set to open in April, has reportedly lost 50 per cent of its inaugural bookings.Tourism officials in Zimbabwe insist that visitors are completely safe and that none was affected by the disturbances that caused 31 deaths in the period leading up to parliamentary elections in which the ruling party faced its first serious opposition challenge since majority government began 20 years ago.Leslie Gwindi, public relations manager for the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), says the nearest farm to Victoria Falls is 30 miles away and it has not been occupied. He insists that, despite widespread fuel shortages, provision has been made for transporting tourists. The ZTA is organising press trips for travel journalists and launched an aggressive campaign at the World Travel Market in London.After farming and mining, tourism was until this year Zimbabwe’s biggest foreign currency earner. Figures from the country’s Central Statistical Office (CSO) show that tourism declined by 200,000 visitors this year against the 1.4 million who arrived in Zimbabwe for a holiday in the first nine months of 1999.But other evidence suggests a much bleaker picture. Hotels and tour operators admit to large-scale staff lay-offs as bookings have fallen to below 40 per cent capacity.

Whereas, according to the CSO, an average of 58 per cent of Zimbabwe’s hotel and bed-and-breakfast rooms were occupied in June 1999, only 20 per cent of available rooms had been sold in June this year.Eclipse Safaris, one of the most high-profile tour groups travelling to southern Africa in June, had originally intended to take its group to Zimbabwe but opted instead for the “Solar Eclipse Tented Village” 50 minutes’ drive east of Lusaka.According to the American company’s website, “the situation in Zimbabwe has steadily deteriorated and the economy weakened rapidly” and Zambia was chosen even though it is “underdeveloped and logistically more difficult”.. One of the unsung heroes of BA flight 2069, that came within seconds of nosediving into the African bush on Friday after a crazed passenger entered the cockpit, was a 6ft 7ins, 15st missionary and former basketball player from Sumter, South Carolina. One of the unsung heroes of BA flight 2069, that came within seconds of nosediving into the African bush on Friday after a crazed passenger entered the cockpit, was a 6ft 7ins, 15st missionary and former basketball player from Sumter, South Carolina.
Clarke Bynum, 39, was on the London Gatwick to Nairobi flight only because bad weather in London caused him to miss a connection to Entebbe, Uganda. He awoke in business class to the howl of engines and screams for help from the cockpit as the airliner plummeted 19,000ft from its cruising altitude of 30,000ft.A 27-year-old Kenyan man, said to be deranged, had grabbed the controls and was pushing the Boeing 747-400 into a series of nosedives as he struggled with First Officer Phil Watson for control.”As we awoke, the plane was in a violent drop within seconds,”said Mr Bynum, who was with his friend Gifford Shaw “I looked at Giff and said, ‘We’re gonna die’. He said, ‘You’re right’.”We could hear hollering and banging I said to Giff, ‘We have to do something’. So I went to the cockpit.”As I opened the door, the assailant was wrestling with the co-pilot. The pilot that ran in ahead of me [Captain William Hagan] was about 5ft 7ins and he was trying to get him away.”As the plane began to turn over on its back, the intruder bit 53-year-old Capt Hagan’s ear and finger.