Zimbabwe courts Emirates for direct Dubai–Victoria Falls flight

Nduduzo Tshuma in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

ZIMBABWE is positioning itself to tap into the millions of international travellers who transit through Dubai each year, with Government courting global airliner Emirates to launch a direct flight from the Gulf hub to the resort city of Victoria Falls.

The development follows engagements between the Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Barbara Rwodzi and top executives from Emirates Airline led by Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer Mr Adnan Kazim on the sidelines of the World Governments Summit here.

At the meeting, Minister Rwodzi acknowledged the airline’s significant contribution to the growth, recovery and global positioning of Zimbabwe’s tourism sector, which has propelled the country onto the global travel spotlight.

This momentum culminated in Zimbabwe being named the World’s Number One Must-Visit Destination by Forbes in 2025.

Building on this progress, the engagements explored enhanced air connectivity, with particular focus on prospects for a direct Dubai–Victoria Falls route, positioning Victoria Falls International Airport as a Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) regional hub, supported by the KAZA UniVisa and its technical capacity to accommodate wide-body aircraft, including the A380.

The teams agreed that a delegation of experts will be deployed to assess Victoria Falls International Airport’s capacity and if satisfied, signing of the deal is likely to be done by mid-year.

In an interview, Minister Rwodzi said:

“WE met with the top executives of Emirates to discuss about a direct flight from Dubai to Victoria Falls,” adding that Dubai is a global hub with up to 6 million travellers passing through to access different parts of the world.

“We want them to fly direct into the Victoria Falls which is our pride and one of the seven wonders in the world. It is good and very well received by the Emirates management that it is strategic for people to for example be coming from Dallas Texas into Dubai and straight away into Victoria Falls.

“We are happy that the executive management has accepted this call and they will be coming into our country to meet with the Civil Aviation teams from the Ministry of Transport which we are applying whole of Government approach in this case because they are our enablers for tourism,” said Minister Rwodzi.

“They will be meeting with the technical team from Dubai to access and analyse the technical perspectives of our airport which we are calling the hub of KAZA hence it is very important for these big airlines to be flying direct into Victoria Falls going to different destinations of KAZA.”

“In the near future, they will be coming into our country to have discussions and analyse our airport leading to the signing that they are willing to do in May 2026.”Meanwhile, Minister Rwodzi took part in high-level tourism discussions at the WGS which included a number of tour operators, chief executives of leading organisations and representatives of major brands such as Four Seasons and Peninsula.

“Zimbabwe participated in a discussion about how it has emerged to be one of the destinations that have been named a must visit in 2025 and we alluded that His Excellency President Mnangagwa’s foreign policy of opening up the country to the world and being friends to all and enemy to none has made this possible,” said the Minister.

“We are very happy that the world is now realizing that Zimbabwe is back on the top platform and destination Zimbabwe has many tourists who are also praising our strategies that have been NDS 1 and now moving into NDS 2 with the pillar of growing of GDP of the tourism sector to contribute to the national GDP.

“We are going to continue marketing the country and of course using the foreign policy of our President to continue opening investment into the country as well as tourists coming into the country. We are grateful to be here and Zimbabwe has been recognised in that manner,” said Minister Rwodzi.