The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) on Thursday called for aggressive marketing in Asia and the Middle East where the country largely remains an unknown tourist destination.

Officials who have visited Indonesia, Singapore and Kuwait said travel agents in the three countries hardly knew anything about Zimbabwe but had expressed their satisfaction with the country's potential as a tourist destination.

"Zimbabwe is not known as a tourist destination and the people were surprised by the products that we have to offer," said ZTA official Gladys Dongo.

The revelations called for aggressive marketing strategies on part of the authority, the tourism industry and the national airline to be put in place for the country to benefit from the potential markets, Dongo said.

Instead of letting the ZTA steer the marketing wheel, there was need to include other players, including foreign airlines, in the bid to lure tourists from the target destinations.

The authority's chief executive Karikoga Kaseke said the tourism industry and the economy could benefit if competitive packages were put in place to attract tourists from the Asian and Middle East countries.

Tourists from the Middle East were high spenders, spending at least 1,700 U.S. dollars per day, he said.

Among other notable disappointments was the fact that people in the countries visited did not know that the Victoria Falls were in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has witnessed a decline in tourist arrivals since 2000 on the back of international media criticism as a result of the land reform program the government embarked on six years ago.

Resultantly, the government launched a Look East policy in a bid to boost arrivals from Asian countries as traditional markets were registering a decline in tourists visiting the country.

Source: Xinhua