Zimbabwe Tourism Authority set its eyes on Russian tourists

Zimbabwe has set its eyes on targeting the Russian market in an effort to boost tourism to the country.
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) says Russia has the potential to help in its tourism turnaround strategy because of its huge population combined with those of countries such as the Republic of Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
"Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) have a combined population of more than 250 million nationals all speaking the same language (Russian)," said the tourism board in a concept paper.
Another reason for targeting Russian tourists is because of the region's surge in spending power following the end of communism. The number of Russian tourists visiting African destinations is steadily increasing due to rising incomes and the desire to have an uncommon wildlife experiences. The preferred destinations for Russians are mainly Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa and Senegal and Gambia in West Africa.
The Russian tourism ministry organises periodic exhibitions which have helped to popularise African countries as tourist destinations.
"We attended the Russian tourism exhibition, called Intourmarket, in Moscow a few weeks ago in a mission to sell our tourism packages.
"We had meetings with a number of travel agencies there," Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive Karikoga Kaseke said.
A ZTA delegation member said: "Zimbabwe is not known and fewer than 3000 Russians travel to Zimbabwe, 15000 to South Africa, 4000 to Tanzania and 5000 to Kenya."
Kaseke said: "Zimbabwe can be a new option for them. They are not really concerned about the negative political publicity the country is getting."
ZTA stressed that the first step in attracting the attention of Russian tourists was to have a direct flight from Moscow to Harare. At present there is no direct link between the two countries.