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Senior Business Reporter
More than 1,000 tourism players are expected to attend the inaugural Chinese-Africa Tourism Conference in Victoria Falls early next year.

The event will be hosted by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority in collaboration with the Chinese Friendly International.

“Zimbabwe seeks to position itself as one of the leaders in offering a Chinese friendly destination by hosting the first ever China-Africa Tourism Conference from 20-23 March 2017 in Victoria Falls,” said ZTA in a statement.

“The conference will be hosted by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority in collaboration with the Chinese Friendly International, led by Dr Kurt Grotsch who also is the Dean of Catedra, a Chinese think-tank comprising of more than 150 academics, researchers, lawyers and tourism experts in the Chinese market.

“This conference will gather more than 1,000 tourism players and experts from Africa and China.

“Participants will engage in knowledge transfer on how African countries can easily penetrate the Chinese market.”

Among the expected delegates will be African Tourism ministers, heads of national tourism organisations, Chinese Embassies in Africa, United Nations World Tourism Organisation, World Tourism Cities Federation and various tourism stakeholders from China and Africa.

It is hoped that the conference will increase cooperation among African destinations in offering seamless multi-destination packages suitable for the Chinese market.

“At the end of the conference all the conference participants are expected to be more knowledgeable of the needs of the highly travelled Chinese market.

“Zimbabwe is consolidating its tourism promotion efforts in China as it aims to benefit from the multitudes of Chinese long haul travel to Africa.

“At the end of the conference real experience Chinese-African encounters will be compiled in the form of a white book, which will further enhance knowledge sharing,” said ZTA.

“It is our sincere hope that this white book will help to bridge the gap between Africa and China as ancient elder and scholar.”

The authority cited The China National Tourism Administration indicating that a total of 120 million Chinese travelled abroad during 2015.

CNTA has revised that by 2020 China will provide over 600 million outbound tourists from the earlier projected 240 million. This reaffirms China’s position as the world’s biggest outbound tourism market since 2012.

In particular in recent years, Chinese tourists have topped the global ranking of per capita outbound consumption, making China the world’s biggest source of tourists with the biggest spending power, and contributing to the development of the global tourism sector.

ZTA said hosting of the China-Africa Conference offers a Pan African collaborative approach in destination marketing.