Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube ,Victoria Falls Reporter
VICTORIA Falls will be Eurowings Discover’s fifth destination in Africa when the German airline makes its maiden landing in the resort city in March next year.
Wholly owned by Lufthansa Group and serving long-haul leisure destinations, Eurowings Discover is on an offensive to expand its footprint and Victoria Falls’ attractiveness has made the airline to commit itself to the route.
Currently, Eurowings flies directly into Mombasa in Kenya, Windhoek in Namibia, Zanzibar Tanzania, and Mauritius.
The airline will fly into Victoria Falls three times a week via Windhoek starting on March 30 next year, after which the Frankfurt-Kilimanjalo route will follow in June.
As a follow up to a virtual meeting held in May this year with the local tourism stakeholders to announce interest in coming to Victoria Falls, Eurowings Discover held a meeting with tourism players and officials from the Airports Company of Zimbabwe (ACZ) here yesterday where they made a commitment to market the destination.
The airline is seeking to cement partnership with the local industry in marketing destination Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe in general.
Lufthansa Group general manager, Mr Andre Schultz said there is a strong focus on Africa as a destination.
“Our next project is Victoria Falls and 30 March will be a big day. We are happy that Eurowings Discover will start flying via Windhoek and we are very optimistic and positive regarding the booking outlook hence we are really looking forward to the 30th of March,” he said.
“Eurowings Discover is a new leisure long-haul airline of Lufthansa Group and we are really happy to support with this airline the restart of Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls tourism industry actively with this flight.
“Our commitment is that we will do what we can to market Victoria Falls but with local support. We need to increase confidence of travellers.”
He said the airline was impressed by the potential that destination Zimbabwe has and the number of German tourists coming into the destination. German is one of Victoria Falls’ significant source markets.
Mr Schultz said the route will benefit not only Victoria Falls but the whole Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation region. He said so far, the airline had received positive customer feedback since announcing intention to fly into Victoria Falls.
However, he said, there is need for strong marketing to get people to travel into the region while also expanding footprint in Africa. Plans are underway to rollout a massive marketing and education campaign ahead of the coming of the airline both in Windhoek and Victoria Falls, for the industry to reach out to all source markets around the globe.
Mr Schultz said leisure segment of tourism is recovering faster than corporate business hence presents travel opportunities post Covid-19. The Frankfurt-Windhoek route has been getting positive bookings which gives hope to the Victoria Falls route.
“This is not just a project, it’s a long-term initiative, we are here to stay so we have to work jointly together to fill up the flights. If we were not optimistic and had not seen data that the bookings are quite promising we would not be here,” he said.
“That’s why we are here so that we have great exchange with stakeholders for partnerships and cooperation to make long term success going forward.”
ACZ chief executive, Mr Tawanda Gusha, said Victoria Falls is on the international spotlight.
“The 30th March will be a day of firsts as we will have the first intercontinental and first long-haul European flight to land in Victoria Falls after a decade,” he said. “This will be a day to celebrate not only to Victoria Falls and tourism but the economy at large and as ACZ we will make sure we continue to market other airports as well to ensure we have more airlines coming into the country.”
ZTA executive director for international marketing, Mr Jeffrey Manjengwa said the development is a big boost to tourism recovery especially targeting key source market in the world and an opportunity to show the world that Zimbabwe is a safe destination. — @ncubeleon
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