Tourism operators eye more Russian travellers

LOCAL tourism operators are eager to lure more travellers from the Russian market as the sector continues to diversify into new markets to grow the travel and tourism business in Zimbabwe. Traditionally, the Zimbabwean industry has been relying largely on America, Europe, Australia and selected countries in Africa such as South Africa for huge volumes of tourists.

Lately, there have been pockets of group travels from China and Japan as the tourism industry continues to regain its feet after the Covid-19 pandemic. President Mnangagwa in 2020 launched the Tourism Growth and Recovery Strategy to revive the sector, which targets a US$5 billion industry by next year.

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) hosted the Russian delegation led by Ms Daria Falovskaya, a market expert for Integrity Promotion Group.
ZTA Matabeleland North regional manager, Mr Daniel Mumpande said the engagement was important in building bridges in the tourism sector to foster meaningful promotions and showcase areas of collaboration.

Ms Falovskaya said the Russian market has been working with African countries for 15 countries but the tourism industry remains untapped.
“There are opportunities for huge inbound and outbound tourism. The number of outbound trips is going and in 2019 we had 45 million outbound trips in Europe,” she said.

“Only 20 percent of Russians have ever travelled abroad, so this is a huge untapped market for travel,” she said.
Russia has more than 147 million people and is arguably the biggest country in the world in terms of surface area. Ms Falovskaya said Russia has land boundaries with 14 countries.

Russia and Zimbabwe enjoy cordial political relations, which Ms Falovskaya said presents a huge opportunity for the tourism sector. She, however, said there is need for direct flights into Southern Africa, particularly Victoria Falls.
She said Russian tourists were adventurous and love a destination with combined nature, local culture, culinary and fishing activities. This is part of what Victoria Falls, the country’s tourism capital offers.

The Russian delegation visited Victoria Falls after a trip to South Africa’s Cape Town, a city with twinning tourism arrangements with Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls tourism operators have since expressed interest in filtering into the Russian market and engaging with agents there. —chronicle