The Sunday Mail
The Boma – Dinner & Drum Show has a fresh look and feel, with its new décor capturing the style of the traditional Zimbabwean cooking hut, while the kitchen has been rebuilt and modernised and other structural enhancements made.
The US$250 000 refurbishment – completed last month – was done to keep pace with the growing popularity of this “must-do” Victoria Falls dining and entertainment experience, which opened its doors 27 years ago.
Africa Albida Tourism (AAT) chief executive, Ross Kennedy, said: “The levels of business experienced in 2018, coupled with the growth in the previous two years, led us to make the appropriate investment decisions to equip The Boma for the next five to 10 years.
“Keeping pace with the latest equipment and service delivery expectations, whilst maintaining the tastes, sights and sounds of The Boma – Dinner & Drum Show, were key factors in this major project,” he said.
“The machine that delivers The Boma experience has been modernised. We set out to update The Boma without detracting from its essence.”
The main kitchen, which guests don’t see, and the main cookhouse, were gutted and rebuilt, new equipment installed, and structural changes and enhancements made to the serving areas, such as new granite surfaces and refridgeration of the salad and dessert bars.
Interior designer Belinda Jones said the concept for the décor came from the traditional cooking huts, and it was an amalgam of different Zimbabwean tribes.
“The Boma staff love it, because it reminds them, especially the entrance, of their grandmothers’ huts,” Jones said.
“It’s where the woman’s cooking utensils are proudly displayed. The traditional art form of decorating the walls and shelves with bright pigment goes back a while, but it is now being revived as a new art form,” she said.
“The women translate the rhythms of their lives into abstract patterns, but now include motifs from nature, both floral as well as animals,” she said.
AAT operates a portfolio of properties in Victoria Falls – Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, Victoria Falls Safari Club, Victoria Falls Safari Suites, Lokuthula Lodges and The Boma – Dinner & Drum Show, as well as Ngoma Safari Lodge in Chobe, Botswana.
