Feature: China-built airport brings Africa's famed waterfalls closer to world

As the sun sets on the Zambezi river near the tourist town of Victoria Falls, the bustle of a popular local arts market melts away with the African savannah heat.

AIRPORT EXPANSION EXPECTED TO BOOST TOURISM

Hidden in the upper floor of the market, the "Nam Took" Thai restaurant was lit up by colorful lanterns. With tables set, Madam Toy, owner and chef of the restaurant, walked into the kitchen, tossing out the spices she brought from Bangkok to prepare an authentic Thai cuisine for Asian tourists traveling to this country far away from their homes.

Toy had previously run a successful Thai take-away restaurant in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, but she decided to rent this spacious property here a year ago to cash in on an anticipated tourism boom surrounding the Victoria Falls, Africa's most famous waterfalls which is at par with the Niagara in North America and the Iguasu in South America.

"The previous tenant rented this place for three months. Business was not good, and he left," Toy said, "But I say I will hold on and wait."

The completion this month of an expanded airport in the town after two and a half years of construction is a piece of good news Toy has long been waiting for.

With a 150-million-U.S.-dollar soft loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, the airport has been expanded to include a 4,000-meter runway, a new terminal with air bridges, and spacious aircraft slots, said Zhang Xinbin, a manager of the contractor China Jiangsu International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group.

"People were not coming to the Victoria Falls because it was simply too difficult to get here," Zhang said. "But now, as the airport can accommodate most long-haul, wide-body aircraft, tourists will be on their way."

David Chawota, head of Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ), said that the airport's capacity to handle passenger flows has tripled to 1.5 million a year after the expansion.

"It can accommodate flights from anywhere in the world. It is now possible for direct connections between Victoria Falls and our key tourism source markets," Chawota said in an interview with Xinhua.

POOR ACCESSIBILITY MAIN HINDRANCE TO TOURISM

Straddling between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls has the world's widest white water curtain of 1.7 km, surpassing both the Niagara and the Iguasu. Its height at the center is 108 meters, twice the height of the Niagara.

Despite its charm, the tourism figures do not look good. According to Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, foreign visitors in the country totaled at 930,276 in the first half of 2015, of whom 87 percent were from the African continent.

For the Victoria Falls in particular, the number of visitors stands at about 15,000 annually, compared to some 1 million visitors the Niagara Falls attracts every year.

Zimbabwean Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi bemoaned that while the Niagara generates 30 billion U.S. dollars of tourism income every year, the Victoria Falls brings in only less than 1 billion dollars.

Poor accessibility is often cited as one of the causes that prevent foreign tourists from coming. Due to its limited capacity, the current Victoria Falls airport serves only two international routes -- one to the regional hub Johannesburg in South Africa and the other to the Namibian capital of Windhoek.

ECONOMIC DECLINE, SANCTIONS ADD TO WOES

Zimbabwe once enjoyed the status as the regional air hub in the 1990s, at which time Harare International Airport served 46 international flights.

During the last decade, however, the aviation and tourism sectors slid to collapse as the economy went into a free fall, and Western sanctions had only exacerbated the situation.

As a result, some tourists crossed out the Victoria Falls from their to-visit list, while others chose to see the falls on the bordering Zambian side.

The influx of foreign tourists transformed the former textile and trade port of Livingston on the Zambian side into a competitive rival to Victoria Falls town, making the overhaul of Zimbabwe's tourism sector a desperate urgency.

EXPANDED AIRPORT RAISES EXPECTATIONS

As the Falls ranks the top tourist destination not only in Zimbabwe, but also in the region, the expectation for the completion of the airport expansion is high.

"The project makes Victoria Falls a very important point center for tourism development and growth in the southern African region," said Paul Matamisa, chief executive of Zimbabwe's Council for Tourism.

Matamisa said the tourism industry hopes that the Zimbabwean government will take the opportunity to advertise the airport to the international community and lure more airlines from major tourist destinations to come.

In his opinion, diverting passengers to the newly expanded airport can not only ease the pressure on regional air hubs like the "oversaturated" O.R. Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg, but also benefit other neighboring countries like Zambia, whose air transport infrastructure still lags behind.

It is not yet clear which airlines will launch the first long-distance route to Victoria Falls, but Qatari Ambassador to Zimbabwe Salem Al-Jaber said last month that negotiations for launching a route were at an advanced stage.

With the expanded airport in place, Mzembi said his government would push for the opening of skies, relaxation of visas, and the upgrade of lodging and entertainment facilities to draw more arrivals in an ambitious bid to grow tourism into a 5-billion-dollar industry by 2020.

MEASURE TO LURE CHINESE TOURISTS

Acknowledging that China has become the world's top outbound tourist market with more than 100 million Chinese traveling abroad last year, Mzembi told local media recently that the cabinet had reached an agreement on granting visas on arrival to Chinese nationals coming to Zimbabwe.

Official figures show that Zimbabwe has been receiving some 3,800 to 5,500 Chinese tourists per year. In the first half of 2015, 4,000 Chinese nationals visited Zimbabwe on tourist visas, many of whom, however, were believed to have landed just in the capital for business or work.

For Toy, a possible surge of Chinese tourists means another piece of good news for her Thai restaurant, which is currently the only one serving authentic oriental food in town.

"I know for sure Chinese tourists will come to my restaurant. As east Asians, our stomach is more used to steamed rice," she said with a broad smile, adding with her accented Mandarin that she serves the Chinese herbal tea "Jiaogulan" as well. Endi