A DELEGATION of about 100 Russian tourists is currently in Livingstone to explore Zambia’s tourism products.
The tourists, who all work for Russia’s Mobile Telecoms Company (MTC), would visit the Victoria Falls as well as participate in boat cruises and white water rafting among several adventures.
Zambia Tourism Board (ZTB) managing director Felix Chaila, who received the delegation in Livingstone at Protea Hotel on Saturday, said the visit by the Russian tourists were an endorsement on Zambia as an attractive destination for tourism.
Mr Chaila said in an interview that the visit was extremely important to Zambia as Russians were big spenders.
“As you may be aware, the Russian outbound tourism market globally is fifth largest globally in terms of expenditure.
In the past, we talked about the efforts that ZTB was doing in the new markets namely Russia, India, China and not the traditional markets and so far our efforts are now bearing fruit,” Mr Chaila said.
He said emerging markets like Russia give immediate results and the rate of growth in terms of source tourism was much higher.
“Emerging markets are just being given information about new destinations and they are just begging to start to travel what is called long haul or new beginning
When you get a large group of 100 like the one we have received, I am sure you have never seen single group of tourists in Livingstone which has filled up the entire hotel,” Mr Chaila said.
He expressed hope that the Russian tourists would be ambassadors of Zambian tourism in their country as they were expected to tell the story and experiences of their visit to the country.
“When you have large groups like these, the impact will be much bigger and all you need is to have 10 groups of such in a season and Livingstone will be impacted greatly.
In April, we brought 13 Russian tour operators in Livingstone and they are busy marketing the Zambian destination,” Mr Chaila said.
He commended Maximo Tours, a Zambia Tour Operator which attracted the Russian tour operators to Zambia.
“It is good news to note that a Zambian tour operator has managed to attract such a large group and I want more Zambian operators to start believing in themselves,” he said.
Mr Chaila said ZTB had embarked on capacity building programmes such as the social media and electronic (e)-marketing training workshop held in Livingstone last week aimed at improving the marketing skills of tour operators.
During the workshop at Protea Hotel in Livingstone last week, Mr Chaila urged Zambian tour operators to embrace e-marketing and social media to market their products tourists across the globe.
Mr Chaila said e-marketing and social media were the most useful tools to market tourism products in the current complicated global market and playing field.
He said Zambia was not an island as the country was competing for tourists with other countries which were very advanced skills and technologies to woo tourists.
“We must catch up and also look at the buying behavior. As it is now, most tourists are going on the websites and internet and make their books online.
We ought to be visible and understand these particular platforms and need to employ them and engage such platforms,” Mr Chaila said.
A facilitator from Belgium, Sofie Verhaille, said the main goal and objectives of the training was to facilitate the ZTB and its representatives to use social media as an effective marketing tool.
Ms Verhaille, who is Talking Heads chief executive officer, said the training would provide tools to make social media work in the long term.
They r lying & r NOT TOURISTS, ve come to loot our resources-( Agriculture Investments r wht they r looking forward to explore & EXPLOIT AFRICA). Its scramble for my BEAUTIFUL Africa ONCE AGAIN !!.
EU & West used to supply MOST OF RUSSIA’s food stuff ranging frm Apples to Pork.
russia has a 1000 times more resources than zambia they dont need anything from there.if africa was beautiful we would be living there now.
Yes Anderson, since you have run away we have come to take your place. Good luck with the winter there. It is so nice here.
Those raw materials need to be exploited for the benefit of Zambians and not to be left lying there as they have for the last 1,000 years!! Just put good laws in place rather than intimidating visitors. You forget that you, through your govt, have been spending heaps of cash to travel to these countries to woo investors to Zambia and when they come you start insulting and threatening them!! Please keep your backward thinking to yourself and let people who understand these issues work. That is why we have different ministries and govt wings to deal with such manners in a more civilised way.
These are broke tourist .The rich in russian hate africa as whole to the core.You will never see them come over there.Most of the russians who actually go abroad they usually get loans from the banks which the have to pay back for years when they go back home. These are the poor ones trust me!!!
Hmmm I don’t trust the Russians, I hear and partly read that they don’t treat black people/Africans well. I do smell a rat, with the sanctions on Russia already in place? We need to wake up from slumber mother Africa!
Time to expand our agro export destinations with Russia’s sanctions against EU countries. Zambians should see this as an opportunity to make agriculture profitable. We all know how stringent the EU is when it comes to importing foodstuffs from Africa. Russians can come and start working with Zambians in establishing the type of standards they need for our food products to land in Russia for the people there to consume. The door closing on the EU must now be open for Zambians and other African growers to exploit.
Russians are racists they should go back home.
Who cares if they are racists or not? As long as they can make Zambia wealthier by buying Zambian products, it does not matter. And name one country that is not racist. All nations are racist. They all look after their own kind. Have you not read of rioting in Missouri this week? A Black youth was shot to death by a policeman over faked reasons since the youth was an ideal Black youngman attending school, and he was in Grade 11!!
We must focus on making Zambia a better country for our people instead of focing on dishing out our resources to foreigners and expecting the citizens to become better with nothing in their ownership. No nation on earth was ever developed by foreigners, and Zambia cannot be the first one given our declining well-being stats.
@Russian Tourist-1.2 good luck for you. Obama was meeting these African Leaders weeks ago I just believe they will now change the mentality of ALWAYS WEST even after meeting him !!! Its abad mentality & Its killing Africa.
The West cannot change overnight. They are not into a culture of allowing independent states do their own thing. Interference is the order of day because their history has always been based on imperialism. Why do you think is the reason the US has all these military bases around the world? It is not to ensure that nations remain independent, but to ensure that all these nations are subservient to their global policies. Have you read about how Ukraine has been turned into a trap for Russia, so that NATO can attack Russia? The reason being that Russia has all the energy reserves that the whole world would love to possess? EU has nothing, and their currency is based on nothing other than on the US $ which is based on nothing too!!
Yes we saw them and are having fun too, all the best
I am always a big spender each time i visit Zambia:-),
Prrrima!!!!!!!!!!!!
Russians are drunkards racists with nothing to export apart from oil ,gas and arms.Thats why Russia is just petrol station masquerading as a country.
Hahaha,true Russia is just a gas station.
Evil racist Russians and their dirty money can stay away from zambia.Putin ,their war monger president is the Hitler of our time