Zanzibar’s main culture and music festival drew record crowds once again, and musicians and artists from across eastern Africa and the rest of the continent attended the extravagant week. Festival organizers have since thanked all participants and the media for their support in promoting the annual event and coming from far away to show their crafts and perform their tunes. Over 500 visitors also participated in the survey undertaken to gauge satisfaction, and the response was superbly positive. While some 78 percent of the festival visitors came from Zanzibar and the Tanzanian mainland, 5 percent came from the rest of Africa and 17 percent came from overseas, a remarkable achievement and proof that the festival is now a truly permanent fixture in the annual tourism calendar of Zanzibar and Tanzania as a whole.

The 7th edition of Sauti za Busara will take place February 11-16, 2010, and all those interested in participating or visiting should make early arrangements for their flights and hotel bookings to avoid disappointment when booking too late. Applications for active participation are due on July 31, 2009 to be assured of a place for 2010.

Plans by Egypt Air to resume flights to Tanzania later in the year are reportedly on course. The Egyptian flag carrier will fly four times a week between Cairo and Dar es Salaam using one of their new B737-800 aircraft, seating 16 passengers in business class and up to 144 in economy class. Egypt Air is now reportedly in talks with their Tanzanian counterparts about code shared operations between Tanzania and Egypt, from where passengers can then connect into the global ‘Star Alliance’ network to which Egypt Air now belongs.

Egypt Air previously flew only once a week to Dar es Salaam but stopped the operation in 2004 when no suitable aircraft was available at the time to operate the route. The renewed flights are clearly aimed to capture connecting passengers and feeding them into onward flights from Cairo to Europe and the Middle East and Asia, a proven formula for other airlines carving out their niches across eastern Africa. A most obvious target would be the traffic base of Kenya Airways and Middle Eastern airlines flying to Tanzania.