South Africa is intensifying its efforts to grow arrivals from the Asia Pacific region with Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane scheduled to visit China and Japan, two of South Africa’s key source markets in the region, next week.
Minister Kubayi-Ngubane will embark on a roadshow to China from the 21st – 23rd October, visiting Beijing and Shenzhen. This will be followed by a visit to Japan on the 24th – 25th October where she will also attend the 3rd Japan Tourism Expo in Osaka as well as the G20 Ministers of Tourism meeting in Hokkaido.
The key objective of Minister Kubayi-Ngubane’s visit is to engage with the trade in order to grow arrivals to South Africa from the region. This will be done by highlighting South Africa’s variety of tourism products and experiences, thereby re-affirming South Africa as a premium destination for both Chinese and Japanese travelers.
Minister Kubayi-Ngubane will also visit Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, where she will oversee the signing of a memorandum of understanding between South African Tourism and Tencent – with specified commitments to work together to increase South Africa’s awareness in the Chinese market and to ensure a superior visitor experience for Chinese travelers when they arrive in South Africa. Tencent is a leading provider of Internet value added services in China.
South Africa has enjoyed very healthy Diplomatic relations with both China and Japan and Minister Kubayi-Ngubane’s visit is testament and demonstrates that South Africa is a ‘must visit now’ quality destination.
In his State of the Nation Address earlier this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa re-affirmed the tourism sector as being crucial for the future of South Africa as the country is looking to double its international tourist arrivals from 10,5 million to 21 million by 2030. Therefore, both China and Japan play a significant part in South Africa’s tourism arrivals.
“South Africa is open for business and remains an appealing destination for both Chinese and Japanese travelers, offering abundant, diverse, world class, accredited attractions supported by transport, services and communications infrastructure that competes with the best in the world,” said Minister Kubayi-Ngubane.
This visit will serve as a valuable networking opportunity for creating and consolidating new business and trade opportunities and will boost confidence in the destination among outbound operators, travel agents and the media in the region.
