(Ecofin Agency) - Tanzania is seeking to attract more tourists from China, leveraging the digital sector. The country’s embassy in China has started developing an online platform that will promote Tanzania as a top tourism destination and enable visitors to book hotels online. The African nation also plans to create an access to the platform via the popular Chinese social network WeChat.

“A WeChat account will make communication with Chinese customers easy […] The embassy is liaising with different players to create the platform,” Mr. Kairuki (pictured) said, stressing that the Tanzanian embassy was already creating a website using 5G technology. The website is hosted in China to reach the largest number of potential tourists and Kairuki calls on all tourism players in Tanzania to market themselves through the website.

During a recent meeting with the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators in Arusha, the official presented the website as one of the many essential components of the government's strategy to help operators penetrate the Chinese market.

According to statistics by the China Tourism Academy, a think tank under the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 157 million Chinese nationals are expected to visit other countries or regions in 2020. Chinese tourists spent $127.5 billion abroad in the first half of 2019, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.