Chinese tourism arrivals low

THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has admitted that its high-profile campaign marketing the country to China has failed, and more efforts must be put in place to improve tourist arrivals from the world’s second largest economy. “We are not aggressive in China,” said ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke.

“We need to be aggressive in China. In terms of Chinese arrivals in SADC (Southern African Development Community) we are number 13. The truth is that we are not doing enough,” Kaseke told reporters recently. The SADC region has 15 member countries.

Kaseke was addressing journalists ahead of the Sanganai/Hlanganani World Exhibition, the country’s largest annual tourism exhibition, which drew buyers and tour operators from across the world.  The ZTA says despite its efforts to improve destination awareness in China and other Asian markets, arrivals have continued to decline.

“Arrivals from the Asian market continued on a declining path recording a 61 percent fall from 26 420 in 2013 to 16 370 in 2014,” it said in the first half report covering tourist trends from across the globe.

“The decline was mainly driven by decreased arrivals from China, Japan and South Korea being the leading markets in this region. This is contrary to the prevailing trend in which China is the leading outbound source market globally,” said the ZTA.

Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister, Walter Mzembi, has also indicated that he was unhappy with the level of tourist arrivals from China, despite ongoing efforts to market the country in Beijing. He wants government to approve at least nine Chinese airlines from different provinces to fly into Zimbabwe in order to improve accessibility.

Mzembi has targeted an ambitious US$5 billion revenue from the tourism industry in the next four years. He is also pushing Cabinet to spread, or even scrap, visa issuing points in China, which is only processing visas in Beijing. Several engagements would kick off in South Africa to increase tourist traffic from the southern neighbour.

Zimbabwe and China have an agreement in place encouraging Chinese tourists to prioritise the southern African country. The agreement, called the Approved Destination Status, was signed in 2003. Desperate to relay a message of hope in a country that last tasted success in 1999, Mzembi has approached top Chinese government officials again, to reactivate the market through a Memorandum of Understanding for five million Chinese tourists to visit Zimbabwe per annum.

“I have asked China, with its 100 million travellers per annum, that we only want five percent of that number,” Mzembi said recently.

“The policy drive is to ensure we develop presence in emerging international economies such as the BRICS economies. Our mounting interaction with these emerging markets offers immense opportunities to grow international source markets and dilute risk. In addition, we should nevertheless maintain visibility in traditional source markets to regain lost market share. I have been reading in the papers that Finance Minister (Patrick) Chinamasa has been asking for a US$10 billion loan to China to be repaid over 20 years. That can be provided by the tourism industry without borrowing,” he said.

Zimbabwe has been receiving between 3 800 and 5 500 Chinese tourists per annum, against arrivals of between 80 000 and 100 000 in neighbouring countries. “They are our all weather friends but they are the least,” said the tourism minister.

Kaseke began raising alarms about subdued arrivals from China in 2006, a year after Zimbabwe adopted the Look East Policy, which encouraged trade ties with China and the rest of Asia after the country’s diplomatic standoff with the west affected arrivals.

“Let’s not fool ourselves,” Kaseke told journalist then.

“Zimbabwe is virtually unknown in China. We have to do a lot of work,” Kaseke said. He said ZTA’s campaigns were concentrated on the Beijing market and ignored other regions in the world’s fastest-growing economy. Eight years later, nothing has changed in terms of strategy. But the drawback has been Zimbabwe’s incapacity to fund marketing campaigns.

“The Chinese market has better knowledge of other African countries than Zimbabwe. We are losing potential tourists because when marketing, they (other countries) also include the Victoria Falls (as part of their marketing packages),” Kaseke said in 2006.

“Zimbabwe must now start investing in destination awareness. However, we have been researching (and) some of our researchers are in China learning the characteristics of that market,” said Kaseke.

newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw