Construction of Elephant Hills hotel to start soon

The Rhodesia Herald, June 30, 1971

WORK will start in three months’ time on the $1 million Elephant Hills Hotel on Dale’s Kopje. The hotel is one of three planned at Victoria Falls within sight of the Zambezi River.

Mr George Stewart a spokesman for the developers, said yesterday: “We plan to start on the main building in three months’ time.”

First construction targets will be a good gravel road to the summit and temporary accommodation for the builders. The developers were still negotiating with an international hotels and resort company to extend its franchise to Elephant Hills Hotel, he said.

The Salisbury architects, Montgomerie, Oldfield and Kirby, were redesigning their original drawings and design to give the hotel less of a “high rise” aspect.

“We feel the sight does not call for a high-rise architecture. We want more rooms than we had originally called for, but the final design will be very similar in appearance to the original concept,” he said.

Mr Tony Hill, a director of Goodwood Hotels, who are planning a luxury East African Lodge type of hotel on the Zambezi bank, said building would probably start towards the end of this year. A mix up about the size of the site had been smoothed out, he said.

The third new hotel, The Big Three Hotel, a Southern Sun Hotel Corporation project, is being held up for a while, although work on its $120 000 international standard golf course is to be started almost immediately.

The Southern Sun Corporation has linked its reasons for delaying the start of the $2 500 000 Big Three Hotel with its extension and improvements at the Victoria Falls Hotel which it also owns.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

◆ One of the Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Victoria Falls or Mosioa-Tunya has the largest waterfall in the world.

◆ Victoria Falls is the number one

tourist destination in the world. ◆ In order to create a booming tourist industry that generates employment and brings in foreign currency, the public and private sectors have over the years worked to ensure that the infrastructure in the recently named Victoria Falls city, matches international standards.

◆ The construction of high-quality hotels and other amenities, remains work in progress.

◆ The Elephant Hills Hotel and Resort has become an icon in the Victoria Falls. The original hotel was destroyed during the Second Chimurenga.

◆ In the 1990s, the hotel was totally

demolished and rebuilt with new designs. It was completed in 1992 and the first guests were Queen Elizabeth II and other Heads of State and Government, who had come for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.