Azanzi Beach hotel, Zanzibar undergoes a mini refurb.

We are delighted to announce that Azanzi Beach Hotel has recently undergone a refurbishment during the closed season. The following works have either been completed or are due for completion by the end of June:

• A new borehole has been outfitted guaranteeing a good quality consistent water supply.
• All of the public areas have been repainted and the bathrooms have been refitted.
• For those that want to be pampered, our new raised spa is being built on the beach overlooking the ocean.
• A Barazzo (casual meeting place) is being completed beachside where drinks and lights meals are served throughout the day.
• A Beach BBQ area is being built to accommodate beach dinners and lunches, overlooking the ocean.

For more information and reservations at Azanai Beach Hotel please follow the link or call: 01227 753180

BA Boosts East African Operations

British Airways will replace the Boeing 777s on the daily service between London and Nairobi Kenya with the larger Boeing 747-400s. This will add over 780 seats a week on the route.

In Uganda, it will increase services between Heathrow and Entebbe from three to four flights a week from the end of March.

Elsewhere in Africa, British Airways is increasing capacity to Ghana, deploying a larger four-cabin Boeing 747-400 aircraft to replace one of the Boeing 777s operating its 10 weekly services to Accra.

In early March it increased capacity to South Africa when it introduced six A380 services as part of its double-daily service to Johannesburg.


In May, it will grow its winter schedule to Cape Town from daily to 10 a week.

For more info on travel to Africa please call: 01227 753181

Zanzibar fishers get Japanese aid.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - The Zanzibar government has received a $8.5 million Japanese grant for the development of the Malindi fish landing and marketing facilities in Zanzibar.

In a press statement to East African Business Week it is stated that the money will be used for the construction of the landing quays. This will enable safe accommodation of about 400 fishing boats on the island.

The funds will also help in the construction of a fish market and the provision of equipment that would allow smooth operations for around 6,000 users besides helping in fishing management programs.

The grant agreement according to the statement was signed by the chief representative of JICA, Tanzania Office Yasunori Onishi and Khamis Omar, the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Finance in the Revolutionary government of Zanzibar.

According to Onishi, the implementation of these components will to the greater extent help in implementation of the said projects which will later lead to the stable supply of better quality fish to the people of Zanzibar.

According to Zanzibar government officials the funds will help in ensuring that the illegal fishing practices is halted which will later translate into a more modern fishing methods in order to protect environment and ensure a rapid income in the fishing industry.

An official in Zanzibar government said the construction of a $2.5million complex owned by the Zanzibar Fishing Authority last year was also one the indicators that the fishing industry in the isle is improving.

He said Zanzibar was willing to do its level best to ensure that fishing sector generates the more income for its people.

Currently Zanzibar major export earnings are from cloves which dropped last year to $2.1 million exports during the year ending September 2013, being a 60.2% drop from $4.3 million exported during the preceding year according to according to the Bank of Tanzania’s (BoT) Monthly Economic Review for October 2013.

With the decline in clove exports last year, Zanzibar’s export of goods and services dropped to $176.4 million during the year ending September 2013 from $196.6 million recorded in the same period a year before.

Despite the support being rendered to the fishing industry, most Zanzibar’s are also farmers, farming mainly Cassava, Sweat potatoes Rice, Cloves at relatively small scale with only one Research Institute at Kizimbani Research Center.

For more information on travel to Zanzibar or safari holidays to Tanzania please call: 01227 73180

The Netherlands Supports Expansion of Kilimanjaro International Airport.

 With support from the Netherlands government, Tanzania will carry out an expansion project for the Kilimanjaro International Airport in the northern tourist circuit. The Netherlands government had signed an agreement this week to provide 15 million euro to support Tanzania in carrying out rehabilitation and expansion of Kilimanjaro International Airport. Upon completion, Kilimanjaro Airport will attract more international flights, hence boosting the growing tourist flow in northern Tanzania as well as cargo flower handling.

Several international airlines are now landing in northern Tanzania through Kilimanjaro Airport. These include Qatar Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, and Condor German Airlines, a charter tourist carrier from Germany.

The expansion project of the airport will start this year and be completed in 2020. The rehabilitation project will cover the aprons, taxiways, and terminal building to efficiently handle an expected increase in passengers over the coming 20 years.


Other than tourism, the Netherlands is the leading European importer of Tanzanian flowers, mostly grown in the northern Tanzania regions of Arusha and Kilimanjaro on the foothills of Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro.

For more information on Safari Holidays to Tanzania please follow the links or call: 01227 753181

Tanzania's President to visit Barefoot College today.

President Ali Mohamed Shein of Tanzania's semi-autonomous region Zanzibar will be visiting the Barefoot College in Tilonia, on Sunday.

The college has taught illiterate rural women from Zanzibar to fabricate, install and maintain solar home lighting systems and lanterns.

"Impressed by the skills of the Zanzibari rural women in assembling, installing and maintaining solar lamps for providing solar power to over 200 non-electrified homes in two rural north Zanzibar communities, after their training under an ITEC programme of the Ministry of External Affairs, Shein decided to visit the Barefoot College, Tilonia, with a view to establish similar barefoot training facilities in Zanzibar," said a spokesperson of the college. An MOU will be signed during his visit.

The 'Zanzibar Women Barefoot Solar Engineers' have been trained with the support of an NGO, Wanawake Kupanda. The NGO is founded by the original group of solar engineers from Zanzibar trained in 2011.

The Barefoot College is a non-governmental organization that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities for over four decades with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable.

The 'barefoot solutions' can be broadly categorized into solar electrification for non-electrified villages worldwide, drinking water through rainwater harvesting, health, education, increasing livelihood sources and empowering women.

So far, over 600 semi-literate women have been trained as "Barefoot Solar Engineers" from 63 countries across Latin America, Caribbean, Africa, Asia and South Pacific Islands. They have solar electrified 45,000 rural houses for lighting affecting more than 500,000 people across the developing world. It is estimated that solar lighting saves more than 3 million litre of kerosene in lighting per year.

The reception of President Ali Mohamed Shein to the Barefoot College will coincide with the Lok Utsav music festival being held at the Tilonia campus from February 1 to 4. The festival is a celebration of the traditional Rajasthani singers and musicians and will welcome more than 300 participants.
For more information on travel to Zanzibar or Safari Holidays please follow the links or call: 01227 753181

Zanzibar Commits to Promote Taarab Music

The Zanzibar government will continue to honour the renowned taarab genre artist, the late Siti Binti Saad, for her enormous contributions in promoting Zanzibar worldwide through her tantalizing music talent.

This was said by Zanzibar President Ali Mohamed Shein at a ceremony to inaugurate the Institute of Activist Siti Binti Saad held at Bwawani Hotel on Tuesday evening.

President Shein said that the institute honours the late artist and promotes the great work she did, which has greatly promoted the country and its rich history.

He described the late Binti Saad as a shining light, which has always lit up Zanzibar, saying further that her skills in promoting the country's culture will always be cherished. President Shein called on other artists to learn the work done by Binti Saad.

The president said that in order for the work of art to be nice and attractive to many people, it requires creativity and discipline of its kind.

He said that creativity and discipline are two things which go together in a work of art, especially in taarab music, and when one of it misses artistic work will not go well.

"I must insist so much in creativity in our work of art, because creativity and discipline bring attractiveness," he said. He added: "In taarab, everyone is attracted in different ways... there are those who are attracted by the voice, rhythm, stanza and even the artist's appearance."

He further said that taarab music requires great patience as shown by the late Binti Saad considering that there is no easy task in this world.

"Taarab needs tolerance because the beginning of anything is always difficult and there is no easy task. So it is a must for a person to struggle in the same way Binti Saad did. She never gave up and was always eager to learn new things," said president Shein.

He also emphasized on the need for artists to seek and attain further education, saying education was the basis of development that will assist them a lot in bringing efficiency to their lives.

For more information on Travel to Zanzibar or Safari Holidays please call: 01227 753180

Single visa Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda fails to start as scheduled

The much announced introduction of a common single tourist Visa for foreign tourists coming to Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, has started the new year with a postponement, as none of the three countries apparently was ready to launch on January 1st, this being a public holiday across the region.

A similar delay is also hitting citizens of the three countries who attempted to travel by using their national ID card.

No affirmative date could be ascertained when the new arrangements, for the citizens of the three countries to travel by using their national ID cards nor for tourist visitors would be ready, and if the new system is still being launched in January or at a later stage.


For more information on Zanzibar Holidays or Safari tours please call: 01227 753181