Rampant Ebola fear puts off Chinese tourists to East Africa

EBOLA threat may have started taking its toll on tourism in Tanzania and the rest of East African region.

Tourist flows to the region from China are projected to decline due to the deadly disease thousands of miles from East Africa. The number of tourists from Shanghai to Tanzania are expected to decline by 50 per cent this year because of Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

It has been proved many people in China have particularly poor grasp of geography. They understand Africa as just one country.

The Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration told the “Business Standard” that authorities in tourist hot spots in Eastern and Southern Africa should carry out promotion campaigns to enlighten the world they are free from Ebola outbreak.

The Administration’s Tourism Market Management Department, Ms Wang Yi Ting said already the number in the first eight months of this year have remarkably fallen a situation which calls for an intense awareness campaign to allay fears of the disease to the potential tourists.

“Tanzania and Africa as whole should carry out intense promotion campaign to educate the people here to restore their confidence,” Ms Wang said when journalists from Africa visited the municipal offices.

Though East Africa is about 5000 kilometres from Ebola stricken countries in the West Africa, when it comes to risk assessment Chinese are regarding Africa as a single country.

The two major cities of China, Shanghai and Beijing, produce a large number of outbound tourists to the world where most are looking for new tour spots from the traditional the US, Europe and Eastern Asia.

Until the end of August 4,000 Shanghai tourists visited four Africa countries namely Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt while the season is approaching its end.

In comparison, last year 7,800 Shanghai tourists visited South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania which are the most darling attractions for China visitors in Africa. The Tanzania share was 600 while Kenya 1300 in last year.

The rest went to South Africa and Egypt as the two have many direct air links and local are vigorously marketing themselves. She said Egypt and Turkey has managed to campaign strongly that their countries are safe despite the political instability and it paid out as the number of tourists surges by 50 per cent in 2013.

Despite the Ebola threat, Tanzania has also been advised to improve its promotion activities, tour guide should improve Chinese language skill, and visa application issue as it is not straight forward. “Chinese speak little English, so it pays more if a guide could also speak the language,” Ms Wang said.

In total Last year 16,100 China’s tourists visited Tanzania which was an increase of almost 40 per cent over 2012. The number was expected to increase at the same pace if things remain unchanged. Tourism sector is the top foreign exchange earner in Tanzania after it overtook gold whose earnings fell due to global price decline.

According to Bank of Tanzania records, the country earned 1.973 billion from tourism receipts in the year between July 2013 and June 2014.

The government expects the number of tourists to double to two million by 2017 on the back of improved infrastructure, increased international airlines flying direct to the country, expansion of investments in the sector and increased promotional activities.

The government is focusing on Asia after it diversified tourism source markets to enforce marketing campaigns outside the traditional American and Europe.

China is the currently world’s largest single consumer market and it is currently projected that the China outbound market will grow to 100 million tourists by 2020. Chinese tourists are considered the number one luxury spender worldwide.

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS

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