UAE travel agents to visit Zim

Prosper Ndlovu in Dubai, UAE 

TEN travel agencies and three media houses from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are set to visit Zimbabwe beginning this month to sample the country’s diverse tourism products and help market the destination.

The visit is a culmination of engagements by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) during the Zimbabwe Dubai Tourism and Infrastructure Finance Conference, which ended here on Sunday.

The country is keen to tap into the wider Middle East tourism market through leveraging on the good bilateral relations with the UAE.

Diversifying tourism source markets is critical for Zimbabwe, as it drives towards revamping international travel, which has been disrupted by the deadly Covid-19 pandemic in the last two years.

In an interview at the close of the tourism indaba, ZTA spokesperson, Mr Godfrey Koti, said part of their engagement strategy was to rope in global travel agencies to entice international visitors.

“The people who influence major travel decisions are travel agents and travel management companies and we targeted these here and they were part of the delegates,” he advised.

“So, we decided to invite about 10 travel agents to Zimbabwe and three media representatives to come to the country and explore our destination and its products.

“We believe through this they will be able to come back to their places and sell our product and package the information in a way that the Emirati market understands.”

Mr Koti said inviting foreign agencies was a winning strategy in the sense that it allows travel agents to have buy-in of the local product and thereafter use their experience to lure their clients.

“They are the best people to market us and they can express things the way their market understands. So, we are very optimistic that this exercise will create more awareness and business activity for us,” he said.

“We had about 25 operators from home who came here and had the opportunity to sell and engage with the agents and this buttresses the same thrust.”

Mr Koti said international marketing of the destination was critical in line with the broader tourism industry recovery strategy, which is expected to help the country achieve a US$5 billion tourism milestone by 2025.

“Post Covid-19, it is important that we bring more people to Zimbabwe who will come and experience our high standard levels and Covid-19 safety breakthroughs.

“So, we expect this delegation to start coming into Zimbabwe as soon as possible, perhaps in the next two weeks depending on how busy their schedules are.”