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Denis' Diary
From Denis Dionne,
ATA Canada, Montréal
More
articles from Denis in our French language Section
Items from Aviation and Travel
Media
Qatar Airways in Tanzania
Qatar Airways'
first commercial plane touched down on the Tanzanian soil in
its inaugural flight Tuesday afternoon amid a fanfare of
music and traditional African dance to welcome the new
entrant in the Tanzanian skies.
Led by its chief
executive officer (CEO) Mr. Akbar Al Baker, Qatar Airways'
Airbus &endash; A319 landed at the Julius Nyerere
International Airport in Tanzania's commercial capital of
Dar es Salaam at 14:30 East African time (1130 GMT) from its
home capital of Doha with passengers and senior executives
from the airline's head office.
Mr. Al Baker said
Tanzania is Qatar Airways' target during the year 2007 and
Dar es Salaam is now a 71st global destination for the
Doha based airline.
"We are looking ahead to
introduce bigger aircraft in the Tanzanian route with daily
flights," Mr. Al Akbar said. "I am absolutely
delighted to see a Qatar Airways aircraft landing in
Tanzania for the first time. I would like to thank Tanzania
government and the Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) for their
efforts in making this route a reality
today."
"Tanzania is a
strategically important country for Qatar Airways as we
build our operations across Africa and provide our
passengers with greater choice and a wider network of
destinations," he added.
He said, there has been
strong air traffic between Europe and the Asian states to
East Africa and Qatar Airways is looking forward to
facilitating travel demands via Doha.
Africa presents huge
opportunities for Qatar Airways while Tanzania is one of the
premier business destinations in the African continent by
virtue of tourist attractions available including Mount
Kilimanjaro and a dozen wildlife parks, Mr. Al Baker
said.
Qatar Airways' African
network currently covers Casablanca (Morocco), Algiers,
Tunis, Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Khartoum, Tripoli, Cape
Town, Johannesburg and Nairobi. Lagos (Nigeria) will
be added in the first quarter of this year.
Tanzanian Transport
Minister Andrew Chenge said Tanzania and Qatar have signed a
Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) that would allow
airline companies from each signatory to operate freely in
each other.
Qatar Airways has already
opened a country office in the city centre of Dar es
Salaam. The airline will be operating the Tanzanian
route as QR 544 every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and
Sunday.
Coming to Qatar Airways
would be a great advantage to Tanzanian travelers to Asian
countries, boosting air travel between East Africa, Middle
East and Far East.
Dubai-based Emirates
Airlines has been dominating the Middle East route,
connecting the bustling city of Dubai and Dar es Salaam by
its state-of-the-art A 330 &endash; 200
aircraft.
Emirates started
operating to Dar es Salaam way back in 1997 with two flights
per week, which were subsequently increased to daily flights
in July 2003 via Nairobi.
(Source; ETurbo news
January 10th 2007)
A
Mozambique amongst
biggest tourist destinations
MacauHub
British newspaper, The
Independent, has reported that Mozambique is one of the
world's biggest tourist destinations for 2007
"Mozambique is now in peace,
but it will still take time for tourists to consider the
African country, which was once devastated by war, as a
serious tourist destination," the paper said. The
Independent focused on Ibo Island, one of the 32 islands of
the Quirimbas archipelago in Cabo Delgado province, as one
of Mozambique's main attractions. In the same article, the
newspaper also pointed to Montenegro, Madagascar, Zanzibar,
Mauritius, Egypt, the Seychelles and Australia as tourist
destinations for 2007. Figures from the Mozambican Tourism
Ministry showed that in 2005 Mozambique welcomed 700,000
tourists, whilst in 2000 it received just 5,000 tourists per
year. Tourism minister, Fernando Sumbana recently told
Mozambican newspaper, Notícias that Mozambique
expected to have 1.2 million foreign tourists per year by
2013. In the last few years, the tourism sector has
contributed around 2.5 percent of Mozambique's gross
domestic product (GDP). In 2008 tourism is expected to net
the state coffers US$157 million. Sumbana said that the
biggest challenge over the next few year was to "develop and
position Mozambique as a world class tourist destination."
Figures from the World Tourism Organization, published by
Mozambican news agency AIM, showed that in 2006 The
Mozambican tourism market saw the greatest growth in the
world, with a rise of around 37 percent in relation to 2005.
(Source; Travel daily News; January 10th 2007)
Libya seals pact to
develop more tourist zones
The Libyan Authority for
Tourist Development and the French Agency for tourist,
observation, development and engineering (ODIT) concluded a
contract here Monday for the development of tourist
investment zones in the coastal regions of Tobrouk (far
northeastern part) and Sabratha (West). The Secretary of the
Management Committee of the Libyan Tourist Development
Authority, Dr Ali Fares Aweda, and the Director General of
ODIT/France, Christian Mantei, signed the pact in the
presence of the Libyan minister of Tourism, Ammar Latayef,
and his French counterpart, L`on Bertrand, who is visiting
Tripoli. The agreement comes within the implementation of
cooperation agreements between the two countries in tourism.
It aims at working out master plans focussing developments
that can accommodate investors and tourist operators. This
is concretely about France`s technical assistance aimed at
promoting tourist investment zones in Libya through a
strategy for the promotion of the zone located between
Tobrouk and the Libyan- Egyptian border covering 180 km
where more than 17 tourist investment zones were identified.
The second region targeted by the agreement is the one that
stretches from the city of Sabratha, that boasts one of the
biggest archaeological sites of the Roman civilisation in
Libya, Tellil and Mellita over a distance of 20 km on the
western coast. Libyan tourist authorities explain this
recourse to France`s assistance thanks to the broad
experience this country boasts in the field of the promotion
of tourist zones, namely on the banks of the Mediterranean
Sea, which host more than 70 million tourists annually. In
an interview with PANA after the signing ceremony, Libyan
minister of tourism, Ammar Latayef, commended this
agreement, whose implementation is expected to result in a
greater development of the Libyan tourist sector.
(Source; ETurbo news January 10th 2007)
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