In addition to increasing the number of attractive sites and hatch new tourism products in the Isles, Zanzibar is currently also working to promote the destination in Asia, the Far East and the Middle East.
“We are working to expand our market to as far as India, the whole of Asia, Korea, Poland and Indonesia,” said the Zanzibar’s Minister of Tourism and Heritage, Mudrik Ramadhan Soroga.
Speaking in Arusha, Zanzibar’s Minister of Tourism explained that at the moment, the Islands of Pemba and Unguja are being marketed as the leading beach tourism destinations, while the stone town offers cultural and historical attractions.
Recently however Air France announced that it will temporarily suspend its flights to Zanzibar from next March to the end of May 2025.
On the other hand, the Royal Dutch Airline (KLM) also declared to postpone direct trips to the isles from March to October 2025, something which most operators believe will adversely impact tourism.
The Zanzibar government officials have dismissed the claims.
“These are normal things occurring whenever airlines want to adjust operations or improve their itineraries, but have nothing to do with problems on the Zanzibar part or the highly talked about, mandatory travel insurance cover,” added the Executive Secretary of the Zanzibar Tourism Commission.
Meanwhile during the end-of-year holidays season, Zanzibar usually receives more visitors from Southern parts of the continent who always love to sample the beaches on the unspoiled Island waters.
Zanzibar has also been playing an important role of channelling tourists from the Isles to southern parts of Tanzania mainland, precisely the National Parks in the Southern Highlands Circuit.
Many of the visitors who enjoy networking their travel itineraries between beach tourism in Unguja, Pemba and the wildlife spotting drives in Mikumi and Nyerere National Parks happen to be those from Italy, Russia and Poland.
“It takes less than 45 minutes to fly from Zanzibar to Nyerere National Park,” explains Tomasz Dworczyk, a travel agent based at Unguja, who handles mostly itineraries of visitors from Poland via the Isles to the mainland.
That essentially makes Mikumi, Ruaha and Nyerere National Parks to be more accessible from Zanzibar than say Serengeti or Tarangire and therefore forging a symbiosis linkage between them and the isles in a tourism package combining beach combing and bush trekking.