Zanzibar tourism success offers blueprint for regional growth

A visitor to Zanzibar’s Abeid Amani Karume International Airport would mistake it for a global aviation hub. Apart from the visual appeal, the airport aprons are full of aviation giants such as Turkish Airlines, Qatar, Fly Dubai, Air France and several charters from Europe including TUI Airways.

These airlines are playing a key role in opening up the island to the world’s curious explorers. Through strategic collaborations with the local government, they are making it easier and more affordable for tourists to discover Zanzibar’s hidden gems, much to the chagrin of the more established regional players.

Last month, Zanzibar received 62,125 or 73.9 per cent of the visitors from Europe, with Italy leading with 11,725 visitors. During the period, Zanzibar received over 10,000 visitors from Africa, Kenyans included.

For an island with a population of only 1.8 million people, it might appear as if it is punching above its weight as far as attracting such high-spending tourists is concerned.

According to Zanzibar’s Minister for Tourism and Antiquities Mudrick Soraga, the influx of tourists to the island not only boosts local economies by providing jobs and supporting small businesses but also encourages cultural exchanges between the locals and the visitors.

“This has led to better infrastructure and facilities, ensuring that Zanzibar can accommodate the growing number of travellers while maintaining its natural beauty and unique charm. We want to improve the airport visitor experience so that global airlines can turn the destination into a global hotspot,” he told Enterprise in an interview.

His comments came on the backdrop of a travel summit in Zanzibar where regional tourism players converged for networking purposes. 

The success of tourism in Zanzibar is largely attributed to its open skies policy that allows major airlines not only to fly to mainland Tanzania but fly directly from their global hubs to Zanzibar.

Competing destinations

Geographically, the island is no different from Mombasa or Lamu in Kenya, sharing similar cultural and pre-colonial political backgrounds.

Kenya, though, has ploughed back on the open sky policies with airlines such as Turkish Airlines that once flew directly to Mombasa no longer doing so - giving competing destinations an advantage. 

Mohammed Hersi, who is among the most vocal proponents of the open skies policy has written extensively on the subject through his Facebook page where he says the protectionist policies in Africa are a “scarcity mentality” and a “serious mental block for African countries and African leaders”.

Successive governments in Kenya have defended the move to deny global carriers access to secondary markets in Kenya to protect the national carrier, Kenya Airways.

Last year, the then Transport cabinet secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said Kenya has to consider the country’s best interests before liberalising the skies.

“Open sky policy is not open but regulated for the best interest of the country both in terms of unfair competition but also ensuring that we get reciprocal treatment,” he said

“The airline space also operates on the principle of reciprocity. Our international negotiation in terms of routes and allowing airlines to fly here must be balanced with the interest of Kenya to fly to those markets.”

Interestingly, Kenya Airways is among the airlines that have taken advantage of Zanzibar’s generosity with scheduled flights to the island. Others are Jambojet and Safarilink.  

During the interview, Soraga said Jambojet’s move to connect Mombasa with Zanzibar since July last year, will cushion the local tourism industry from global shocks such as Covid-19.

Unique experiences

The Kenyan airline has flown over 10,000 passengers in the last six months.

Cynthia Otoro, the commercial director at Jambojet, prefers to look at both Zanzibar and Mombasa as complimentary destinations, each with unique experiences to offer.

She says Zanzibar fits well with the airline’s goal of reaching the unserved and underserved markets. “If you look at when we started in 2014, 30 per cent of passengers were first-time flyers. As we market the first decade of flying in 2024, 44 per cent of passengers that we served were first-time fliers. We are giving people more options to fly to this destination,” she says.

According to Otoro, Zanzibar offers a good value proposition since the airline utilises existing capacity thus making fares more competitive with customers reaping accruing benefits. 

“It is now possible for tourists to visit Zanzibar, then fly to Mombasa and tour adjacent tourist destinations such as the two Tsavo parks in Kenya before coming back to Zanzibar for their flights home. Such are the dynamics of direct connections between the two coastal cities,” she says.

The increase in the number of tourists to Zanzibar seems to defy mandatory travel insurance introduced last October that requires foreign tourists to pay $44 (Sh5,675) for 90 days with East African residents paying half the amount.

The insurance must be applied and paid for before a person enters Zanzibar. “While we need to improve guest experience, we think the travel insurance did not have much impact on travel sentiments as shown by the just-released tourism numbers,” says Soraga. 

“We have used the funds to treat emergency cases, replace lost travel documents and repatriate any person who dies during the destination without extra costs to the family.” 

Zanzibar intends to diversify its tourism products by introducing Halal travel and attracting more visitors from the Persian region.