China's Hunan province, Kenya launches platform to explore new models of tourism cooperation

NAIROBI, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Hunan province in central China and Kenya Tourism Board late Friday launched a platform to explore new models of tourism cooperation.

Known as the China-Kenya Tourism Service Platform, the new platform is expected to promote good experiences and practices in cultural tourism development between the two countries.

The platform will also offer a mechanism to enhance the popularity and influence of tourism products by co-expanding markets, exchanging customers, and co-promoting products between the two bilateral allies.

Francis Gichaba, the chairman of Kenya Tourism Board, said that both Kenya and China's tourism industries suffered immensely from the COVID-19 pandemic hence the need to explore innovative ways to boost the sector's growth.

"The approach is aimed at opening new markets as well as reorganizing the existing ones to improve revenue base," Gichaba said during the inauguration of the platform on the sidelines of the three-day China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE) that kicked off Thursday in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

Gichaba said the platform that will be operated through the website targets younger tourists, offering a service standard system for tourism brands in China and Kenya and jointly maintaining the order of the cultural tourism market.

The platform also integrates the advantageous tourism resources of China and Kenya by designing premium tourism routes, optimizing promotional and marketing models.

Under the platform, the international tourism exhibitions, summits, and forums in China and Africa will be improved for resource sharing by encouraging the Chinese citizens to travel to Kenya, and attracting Kenyan tourists to visit China.

The platform that consists of the General Assembly, the Council, Member Units, and the Secretariat is a non-profit organization voluntarily formed by relevant entities in China and Kenya, with the common goal of achieving shared aspirations.

The members of the platform include travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, as well as institutions and service providers with certain business scales and influence along the tourism industry value chains in the two countries.

Shang Bin, the deputy director general of Hunan provincial department of culture and tourism, Li Hui, the director of China-Africa communication center of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Promotion Council graced the inauguration of the tourism cooperation platform.