The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) in conjunction with the South African Tourism (SAT) and the Ethiopian Airlines (ET) are jointly hosting a 17 member delegation of Chinese tour operators on an educational tour of Zimbabwe from 5-9 March 2016.
The educational tour is aimed at showcasing Zimbabwe’s tourism products and increasing destination awareness as per recommendations by Chinese tour operators at last year’s edition of the China International Travel Mart (CITM).
The familiarisation tour began with the South African leg on 29 February 2016. The Chinese delegation is scheduled to tour Victoria Falls and surrounding tourist facilities so as to market destination Zimbabwe from an informed viewpoint.
Commenting on the tour, the ZTA Chief Executive, Mr. Karikoga Kaseke said that the familiarisation tour comes as a strategy to meet the ever-changing needs of the dynamic tourism trends across the world, but especially in the Chinese Travel Trends.
“During the last edition of the CITM travel show, it was deemed necessary to take a regional approach in courting this market as Chinese tourists prefer to visit more than one country on long haul trips hence, the joint marketing initiative with South Africa. As a sector these are some of the strategic joint marketing efforts we are in investing in with various partners and stakeholders in order to further increase our brand visibility across all source markets”, said Mr Kaseke.
The familiarisation tour and the newly announced relaxed visa requirements for Chinese nationals visiting Zimbabwe are part of efforts aimed at increasing tourist traffic from the Chinese market which has become the largest outbound tourist source market by both arrivals and revenue.
