African Sun Limited owned Elephant Hills Resort was awarded with the prestigious ISO9001:2000 certification on Tuesday 03 November 2009. The journey towards certification began on 21 September 2006 followed by an initial audit on 10 December 2007 which culminated with the final audit on 16 March 2008. In his keynote address at the glamorous ceremony held at the hotel, the Acting General Manager Mr Nkosi Moyo said, ‘Since its official opening in 1993, the hotel has been working its way up in the ladder to create a sustainable quality brand that has weathered all storms and… the march to this Promised Land may I say hasn’t been a stroll in the park especially in the face of the memorable yester year’s macro-economic challenges and recent global financial crisis which had decreased the number of arrivals to the hotel”.
According to the General Manager, ‘ISO Certification was made possible through the hotel’s cooperation with local municipal authority [Victoria Falls Municipality] who have always supplied the hotel with safe, reliable and adequate water drinking water as well as timeous collection of refuse, the national power utility [ZESA] who also have also ensured the hotel electricity at all the times. Some of the distinguished guests present at the function were the Governor for Matabeleland North Province, Thokozile Mathuthu, The Mayor of the Resort Town of Victoria Falls, His Worship Cllr, Nkosilathi Jiyane, as well as t the Operations Manager for African Sun Zimbabwe, Mr Tich Hwingwiri. The hotel’s ISO consultant Mr Maseko and the Director General of Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) Mrs Eve Kadzikwa also graced the occasion.
Speaking at the same ceremony, the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) Director General Eve Gadzikwa said, ‘The tourism sector has the potential to spur the country’s economy to be
the fastest growing in Africa between 2010 and beyond’. She went on to say that the hotel is now poised to take advantage of the revival of the global economy armed with the ISO 9001:2000 certification given that that the certificate is now firmly established as the globally accepted standard for providing assurance of the quality of goods and services in supplier-customer relations. Mrs Gadzikwa noted that more than a million ISO 901:2000 certificates were issued in 161 countries.
By being ISO 9001:2000 Certified, the hotel will need to work tirelessly to maintain the standard and ensure consistency in all its services in terms of food quality, service delivery, cleanliness and functionality of all amenities. With the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa barely 8 months away, the likelihood of some soccer teams choosing to set up base in Victoria Falls is very high and it is against this background that the certification of this hotel puts the hotel in a very good position in terms of competitiveness and acceptance as a world class facility. The resort town is within the recommended one-and-a-half hours from Johannesburg by plane. The certificate is valid for three years, after which there will be a re-certification audit.
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