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Emirates Airlines To Market Zambia, Launches Flights To Lusaka
Emirates A380
One of the largest airlines in the world Emirates plans to market Zambia’s tourism globally in over 100 destinations.
Emirates will fly to Lusaka, and onwards to Zimbabwe’s capital Harare from February next year.
The five-times weekly service will commence on February 1, adding the 20th and 21st African destinations to the Emirates network.Bookings are already available on the company’s website.
“Emirates has long understood the enormous potential of Africa, which today is one of the fastest-expanding economic regions of the world, benefiting from a combined market of over one billion people, rising consumer demand and an abundance of natural resources,” said His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline & Group. “Zambia and Zimbabwe will be our 20th and 21st African destinations and their addition to our global network will enable us to provide new flexibility and choice for customers, help to grow trade routes and create important new inbound and outbound markets for tourism.”
The Dubai-Lusaka-Harare service will be operated by an A330-200 aircraft in a three-class configuration that offers 12 First Class seats, 42 seats in Business Class and 183 in Economy Class.
Customers in all cabins will be able to enjoy hundreds of channels of entertainment and the facility to send and receive emails and text messages.
The Multi-billion dollar Airline company which signed a £100 million deal with English Premier League football team Arsenal, a deal which included naming rights to the team’s stadium for 15 years and shirt sponsorship for 8 years will be one of the few Airlines to offer direct inter-continental flights from Lusaka.
Posted by
Abalondo
November 9, 2011 at 6:54 am
Give us something new batumfweko and why Arsenal in the story…
JK
November 9, 2011 at 6:58 am
That is good news for us, but I thought that its time Zambia started to plan of putting in place a National Airline which would greatly contribute to our economic growth? What do others say?
nckbnd
November 9, 2011 at 7:17 am
dats it! Bt batufweko why putin arsenal there? Ar u campagnin 4arsenal 2hav more fans lyk livapu, man u, madrid, barca and da billioneres club CHELSEA FUTBOL CLUB?
NCKBND
November 9, 2011 at 7:19 am
ooh i even 4got how ws da protest against airtel lyk?
mwansa Chalwe
November 9, 2011 at 9:03 am
From the commercial point of view, this is a massive boost for the country’s profile and image as an investment destination. The last election and the publicity we got and of course appointing of a white man as Vice president has just improved our Country’s image.If Sata surrounds himself with good advisors,consults and makes informed decisions unlike now, mark my words,we would be swarmed with a diversified quality of investors unlike now where the Chinese are a virtual monopoly.BUSINESS IS ALL ABOUT PERCEPTION! MC
Zambian
November 9, 2011 at 9:22 am
FINALLY!!!
DAVIDO
November 9, 2011 at 9:57 am
it is very good news for Zed, its always been a hustle flying to Dubai through Addis or Nairobi, especially the return trip which could take you through Lilongwe.
Mwaume
November 9, 2011 at 10:34 am
Tourism minister must ensure:
1. Lodges are inspected in Lusaka and given ratings because some of them are too dirty to be good hosts.
2. Food in lodges must be inspected because some of the food served is not to a good culinary standards;
3. Transport must be rationalized. There should be standard rates to various locations instead of the current situation where new arrivals at KKI are at the mercy of get-rich quick drivers;
4. Establish and develop known tourist sites around Lusaka to make tourists want to see them. There should be fliers printed and available at KKI showing various tourist destinations of interest, including a desk for those that want to get away to known sites – Kafue National Park, Luangwa National Park, Luangwa Bridge, Nchanga Open Pit, Mimbula Fitula Open Pit, etc. We need to be creative in order to make tourism a reality.
5. Registration of all Lodges in each district must be done, and these lodges must be rated in terms of quality of host services – beds, hot water, room hygiene, toilets, shower/bathrooms, water availability, electricity availability, DSTV availability, noise levels at night from surrounding bars, dining facilities, food quality and the cleaniliness of the kitchen staff, etc.
Zikomo.
Framuka
November 9, 2011 at 10:36 am
It is a big plus to Zambia because Emirates Airlines are almost in every corner of the World, hence they will be able to tap tourists to Zambia and Zimbabwe wherever they may be. However, it is also not wrong to also introduce our national Airline to contribute to the efforts by Emirates Airlines. Who knows, depending on our airline services we may come out to be the best. As at now, the move is fantastic as more money will put in the national pocket which is going to trickle down to every hardworking Zambia. And that shall be possible in a corrupt free atmosphere
Potpher Mbulo
November 9, 2011 at 10:57 am
This is good news. This development is long overdue
Docdrizzy
November 9, 2011 at 11:14 am
Mwaume you’re the MAN.
Why did you not stand for MP somewhere on you way to change things in Zed. I love your thinking…where are more like you boss? Excellent thinking….BIG UP!!!
xd
November 9, 2011 at 12:38 pm
The service and customer relations on the Emirates airways is far better than what you will see on the BA or Virgin Atlantic airlines. Besides, their fares are also slightly lower than most other big global airlines. So this is a plus for Zambia. Given the political stability that we have, its likely that even more other airlines could be interested to establish flights to Zambia, no question about it. However, its time that we seriously upgrade and mordenise our international airports so as to be able to accommodate as many of these airlines as possible. For sure the landlocked position of Zambia could still work to our economic growth advantage, but lets put up the correct business infrastructure in the country. At least, i will now be able to fly back to Zed from central Europe via Emirates airways and not SAA or BA. Good news indeed!!!!
Light
November 9, 2011 at 2:21 pm
This some BS,you should see the jobs they are offering..total CRAP!Zambia should just work on a National Airline..please
Mark
November 9, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Good news! just like BA, Emirates are a big airline. However, the responsibily of advertising Zambia as a tourist nation does not rest with Emirates but with Zambia. Emirates will advertize Zambia as one of its destinations. Its up to Zambia to advertise Zambia as an attractive tourist destination. I do not think that airlines are in the business of promoting tourism – countries are…
SENSE
November 9, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I’m tired iyo tumfwenko this,tumfweko grammar tumfwenko why arsenal nfyoto nfyonto do you read on this blog to correct or to know wats happening in the country,get the sense and leave the nosense.mayb other pipo will sense out of it
xd
November 9, 2011 at 3:17 pm
I personally do not see anything wrong with Tumfweko giving us more information about a company that will be operating in our country. Tumfweko are not talking about Arsenal football, but Arsenal business. So if you are against Arsenal just because you don’t support them in the PL, that shouldn’t stop Tumfweko from enlightening us more about this company, should it? It is just the same as Tumfweko giving us more information (e.g. CV) of a person appointed to run a public institution in the country. We saw what Tumfweko wrote about Magande when it was roomered that he would become the BOZ governor (his CV). We also saw the ‘Post’writing a story about G.Scot (VP)’s CV, all done to let the public know more about the subject at hand. So in my opinion, there is nothing wrong here in the way Arsenal has been mentioned in this article.
spooked dot com
November 9, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Buti kwena is this something to complain about? You people who are ever critisizing tumfweko should make your own website & start reporting your own stories. Those of us benefiting from the stories will stay with tumfweko, grammatical errors or not. Some of us live very far away from home, you have no idea how helpful this website is to us & how it makes us feel closer to home. Twapapata, if you aint pleased with tumfweko, stop visiting!
Chazya Kenny Simumba
November 9, 2011 at 5:12 pm
This is very Good. I always incourage compentition in any business bcoz the higher the business is compentive the better the service customers will receive. Big up 2 Emirate “Mwaiseni!”
Mwaume
November 9, 2011 at 6:16 pm
I am Zambian based abroad.
Zambians will always miss out on real tourism potential because we HAVE not set up proper Zambian owned infrastructure to be really good Tourists’ hosts. At the moment, only foreign owned tourist hosts in form of hotels and foreign owned lodges in game parks or tourist locations like L/Stone are making a killing.
This is what we must do:
Minister of Tourism and the Tourism Board must:
1. Establish a proper set of standards for all Tourist Lodges in Zambia and have them graded accordingly with their applicable room rates based on their rating;
2. Establish a Tourism Inspectorate Unit in each province and district to be able to inspect tourist lodges at random to reinforce standards and host performance. Any retardant host would be down graded and their rates slashed to reflect the loss of status;
3. Establish specific culinary courses (dishes) that each Host is expected to offer as a host. These courses are to be provided at selected locations in each province so that there is a deliberate move to improve the quality (sometime even quantity) of food offered to tourists. Particular attention must be paid to Zambian cuisine because it can be quickly boring once you eat Nshima today and tomorrow, a tourist would get tired and would need a different offering; Game meat, inswa, dry fish, mopane worms, pumpkin leaves (fresh and dry) could be examples of things to experiment for tourists, but permission for such meals must be sought from Tourism Board.
4. Provide adequate tourist literature at KKI, HMNI and SMKI for tourists to visit other destinations, and ensure that transport to such locations is available either by road or by air. If by road, get the tourist board to acquire some few luxury buses to travel to locations of choice, and tourists would pay for such a trip;
5. Publish a directory of all tourist lodges in the whole country and their ratings and nightly rates so that tourists can intelligently plan their trips instead of being shocked by unreasonable rates on arrival;
6. Ensure that all Tourist Hosts can provide for tourist activities while staying with them so that a tourist can have a deep experience with his / her stay with the Host. Hosts can arrange for traditional dances in the evening, or an outdoor food extravaganza, a picnic to a location away from their residence so that they can see a different part of their host centre. Picnics require special attention by the Tourist board because the type of food, food handling, storage and management is different from food at the host centre. Short courses on planning picnics and managing picnics for Host lodges would be in order.
5. Tourism Board is to ensure that all Tourism Hosts have clean water for drinking, washing and other applications. Warm running water is to be available in all tourism host centres. There will not be buckets for toilets, all hosts are expected to have running water into all their guests’ toilet / bathrooms on a 24/7 basis.
6. There shall be an annual meeting for all Tourism Hosts of all grades to review the operations by all of them. This meeting shall be held in provincial centres on a rotating basis, and the lodges in the hosting town will show what they are really made of in this business by hosting their associates from other provinces and districts. In addition, all lodges shall form an association whose leadership shall be constantly communicating with the Minister of Tourism to alert him/ her of their issues or problems that require political solutions.
6. The Minister of Tourism shall demand that all foreign based bookings are recorded by hotels and submitted on a monthly basis to his office so that he/she can see the economic trend in the sector from the forex point of view.
Zikomo. I hope that the above helps the Tourism Sector so that our brothers in this sector can also be earning a living on a sustained basis with standards that will give established hotels a run for their money. Tourism is not a fast money machine unless standards are in place to give confidence to the tourist that they will have a whale of time if they go to Lusaka and stay at XXXX Lodge, or stay out of Lusaka at MMMM Lodge, x kms from Lusaka, with GPS bearings being: xxx xxx xxx xx; xxx xxx xxx xx!!
jinx
November 9, 2011 at 7:18 pm
we need own national airline …surely even malawi has
Faye
November 10, 2011 at 9:26 am
See Mwaume’s November 9th 2011 post @ 6:16 pm. It is a great plan. I hope someone in Zambia or Mwaume will take this action~It is good to have an entrepreneurial spirit
Sonsolo Nomuchelemo
November 10, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Please Government, ensure that Zambezi Airlines, have reciprocal rights to also fly to Dubai. For goodness sake, support your own, instead of destroying locally grown airlines.
WHEN WILL WE WAKE UP?