Representatives from top Chinese travel agencies and travel media completed the 9-day fam trip to Sudan and returned to Beijing on March 21. The fam trip is organized by Travel World China with the authorization of the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife Sudan and the support of the Hainan Airlines.

After arriving in Khatoum, the delegation was warmly welcome by Mr. Alam, the representative of the Ministry and transferred to the hotel. Khartoum is the capital of Sudan and is located at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The delegation has visited the busy and active arabic souqs where you can buy gold, handicrafts, fragrant wood fishes and so on. As the majority of the Sudanese are Muslims, mosques are found throughout Khartoum, some of which were built for more than hundreds of years. And in addition to their being places of worship, mosques play an important, social and educational role in the lives of the Sudanese.

Sudan enjoys an ancient heritage in the field of civilizations and antiquities. This heritage is centred in the Northern areas including Al-Naga', Al-Musawarat, Karima, Al-Berkal, Merwie, Dongola and others. The fam trip also focus on the north route tailor designed by the Ministry. The delegation went to the desert to ride camels and shocked by the amazing view of the pyramids which date back to the Nabta era.

The variety of tourism resources is represented in the Red Sea coast which extends for about 853 kilometers. The Red Sea offers a seascape which is one of the most beautiful in the world and Port Sudan is famous for its rich sea life. During the trip in Sudan, the delegation was also transferred to the Port Sudan to explore the underwater world where you will find an enormous variety of colourful fishes and corals.

Although Sudan has been approved to be an ADS country by the Chinese government from 2006, it has not open to the Chinese leisure travellers yet and most of the Chinese who visit Sudan are for work or investment. However, Chinese outbound market has been appreciated more by the tourism industry as a fast booming market. The Annual Report of China Outbound Tourism Development 2009 – 2010, released by the China Tourism Academy, estimates that 51 million tourists would go abroad this year in 2010, up 7 % from 2009. The expenditure of Chinese outbound travelers was 48 billion Chinese yuans ( or 7 billion US dollars ) in 2009, up 14 percent from a year earlier in 2008. This trend would continue in 2010.

As the sponsor of the fam trip, the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife Sudan has entered into the Chinese market since 2007, appointing Travel World China as its promotion representative. In the phase of global recovery from the economic downturn, the Ministry has recognized a fam trip is necessary to promote Sudan as a new and unique destination among both the travel professionals and the individual travellers from China.