Home Business ZIMBABWE HEADS EAST FOR THE CHINA INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL MART (CITM)

ZIMBABWE HEADS EAST FOR THE CHINA INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL MART (CITM)

by BustopTV

By Ruvimbo Makombe

Zimbabwe is participating in the China International Travel Mart (CITM) which commenced in Kunming, China from today up to 17 November.

The core objective of Zimbabwe’s participation at the expo is to increase destination awareness and visibility of Brand Zimbabwe in China and Asian source markets.

Zimbabwe Tourism Authority Acting Chief Executive Givemore Chidzidzi said destination Zimbabwe is looking at luring the greater Asian market.

“China is now globally acknowledged as the most lucrative source market having spent US$115 billion globally in outbound tourism expenditure in 2017 and is projected by the UNWTO to double its current outbound trips to 200 million by 2020. It is in this regard that Zimbabwe’s participation at CITM this year goes a long way towards our continued efforts to increase the Chinese tourist volumes to Zimbabwe,” said Chidzidzi.

Zimbabwe has relaxed visa requirements for inbound Chinese nationals. China was last year moved from category C to category B (visa at port of entry) of the current visa regulations

The 35% growth in Chinese tourist arrivals to Zimbabwe from 14 407 in 2017 to 19 428 in 2018 is a reflection of the market’s potential.

The CITM is the largest professional travel show in Asia and it caters for both leisure and business travel. In 2018 the fair attracted 1 542 domestic and 707 international exhibitors.

With more 142 million travellers, China is the world’s biggest outbound market which has been growing faster than most traditional source markets. The market has been characterised by high spenders. It is in this regard, that Zimbabwe is pulling out all the shots to attract a larger share of this market.

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