Head, Ethiopian Holidays, Mahler Kebede
Ethiopian Holidays (ET Holidays), the tour operator arm of Ethiopian Airlines, has come up with “One Trip, Two Destinations”, for passengers going to other destinations through its airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to enjoy some days in the city before continuing their journey inbound or outbound at no extra cost.
This arrangement according to Mahler Kebede, Head ET Holidays, the airline will not charge the passenger for stopping in Ethiopia to savour its beautiful tourist sites.
“Stopover package like Ethiopian Airlines, has mostly transit passengers going through Addis Airport. So the plan is to have these transit passengers to come for a day, two, three up to seven days”.
She said, they have already made different package combination depending on the interest of the customer, adding that, when the passenger travel on Ethiopian Airlines, their job is to convince the passenger to stay.
“So we would like to make it a pleasant one, and we would not be charging any additional fare for the passenger to come and stop here in Addis. So that will push and people will be comfortable seeing Addis and next time they will be full package passengers”.
Kebede stated that, Ethiopia is replete with beautiful sites and it has come up with packages to suit every person willing to have a taste of Ethiopia, like the Entoto mountains and others.
The ET Holiday Head, explained that, there are new tourist sites, currently under construction which will be completed in few months, maybe in eight months.
Kebede added, “There are two things, one is for Ethiopian passengers from all over Africa, to have like a full package. We can arrange that, plus you can visit Ethiopia throughout all the year. Because rainy season, the north, the whole of the country is from July to September. So there is a time when it is dry and very pleasant throughout the year, so it is a year round destination. So we have the culture in the north and in the south northern history and the white life. So either as a full package destination passenger. And also we have stopover packages”.
On the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Malik said, with some countries opening up after the lockdown, now people are learning to live with COVID, adding that, whether there is COVID or not people are visiting.
During the Covid, she pointed out that, their focus was on outbound passengers and has set a target for themselves and by 2035 they will record 10 million inbound tourists.
“So we will be fully promoting from now to October onward and we will be ready to attend to all the customers from the airport all the way through to their destination”.
“There are different projects because we are also having different films being produced right now so that people know what’s in here, so seeing is believing. So we will be promoting that, we will be having one folder in the inflight for travel so that we will show what people what they will see when they come into Ethiopia. so that it will be easier for tour operators to sell their package. It is kind of a new destination because it is not known as a tourists’ destination. There were few numbers but the numbers has to grow”.
On the figures for inbound passengers, she said, “I don’t have the figure by heart but it continues to increase until COVID. This is like a full-fledged tour operator, we were expanding, having our own tour operations and like we have ceased for a year and half but we will be starting right now to work again, the past year was not really good. But still the office was open an active for some outbound and inbound as well”.
The ET Holidays, is a department which handles inbound as well as outbound package, as well as conference market.
