Staff Reporter

Zimbabwe’s participation at the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) is set to attract more tourists into the country.

In a statement yesterday, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) Executive Director for International Marketing, Jeffrey Manhengwa said the participation of ZTA at MATTA was an effort to meet the country`s tourist arrival targets.

“It was such a great show for us as the ZTA. We are looking at harnessing traffic flow of tourists from this part of the world into the destination. This is in an effort to meet the country`s tourist arrivals target. Zimbabwe and Uganda were the only two African countries that participated.

“Zimbabwe`s participation raised a lot of enthusiasm for the Malaysian market. The market became aware of Southern Africa. Interestingly, the indication is that, around 90% of the traffic who came to the show were not well-aware of the destination or physical location of Zimbabwe, however, interestingly the market is aware of our major icon, Victoria Falls,” said Manjengwa.

Thirty agencies expressed interest in collaborating with ZTA to come on a destination familiarization tour later this year during Sanganai-Hlanganani World Tourism Expo (WTE).

Meanwhile, the MATTA Fair attracted over 460 Exhibitors and proved to be the leading ‘Consumers Travel Fair’ in Malaysia and the rest of the world attended the fair.

The Fair ran for two days from 17 to 19 of this month.