Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Words that have been used
to describe the late Honorable Dr. Senedu Gebru include Resistance
fighter, philanthropist, educator, feminist, patriot, author, teacher
and mother. History may
remember her foremost as the first woman elected to Parliament, but her
contributions to this nation were so many and varied, she
could rightly be considered Ethiopia’s Renaissance Woman of the 20th
century.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Although it might seem like more Ethiopians from abroad are moving back to Ethiopia than ever before, it is also true that the much greater outflow of Ethiopians leaving the country in search of better opportunity abroad, continues unabated.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Coffee Round Table held at Hilton right after EAFCA 2010 and ECX's launch of Direct Specialty Trade.
Department Highlights
Habesha City Tours Atop the Big Red Bus
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Written by Brian Burrell - Horizon Ethiopia Staff Writer
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Habesha City Tours Atop the Big Red Bus
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
One year after opening its 60 million Birr share offering in England, the United States (US) and Ethiopia, Sky Bus Transport System SC has reached over half its target in its quest to become the premier long distance road service provider. The company hopes to begin importing Mercedes high-deck (second largest in a class of four) buses at the beginning of 2009 with the over 32 million Birr it has raised at the time of going to press.
“After forming our board in March we decided to open a second round of share offerings in July in our quest to raise the highest initial capital of any share company in Ethiopia,” Solomon Gedrew, General Manager of Sky Bus, told ACX.
With a board headed by Brutawit Dawit Abdi, main founder of both Abyssinia and Wegagen banks, the company has big plans to tap into what it sees as an underdeveloped long distance transportation sector in Ethiopia. Following a yearlong, 380,000 Birr feasibility study by Green Horse Management and Marketing Plc, where Solomon is also head of operations and which shares an office with Sky Bus in Friendship Building, this ambitious project seeks to give its investors 60-80% returns in the first year alone.
Sky Bus has dipped into the deep pockets of the Diaspora with sales agents in both Dallas and London contributing 7% and 3% respectively of the capital raised. This is part of the business plan stemming from Green Horse’s vision to facilitate investments from Ethiopian’s living abroad. Its next project, Sky Cement, will target this community of around 100,000 in the US and about the same in Europe to finance the erection of a plant to supply inputs to the booming construction sector.
Sky Bus’ business plan basically targets locals who can afford to shell out about double the price offered by the current aging and crowded fleet of public buses crawling across the country and provide them with such amenities as multiple plasma televisions playing movies, in-bus toilets, hostesses delivering hot food choices and more comfort (not to mention the locally revolutionary provision of seatbelts). The first order of about half its long-term target fleet size, 30, would supplement the country’s existing supply of around 1,000 buses, albeit with a large variance in state of disrepair.
Untapped Market
Sky Bus is not the first to see an untapped market. The Tigrai Development Association (TDA), a non-profit organization founded in Washington DC in 1989 with projects focused in health and education, established Selam Bus Transport SC in 1996 with a similar vision. However, after over 10 years of operation, a fleet upgrade, a massive road development push by the government and four years of double-digit economic growth, Selam’s operations are still relatively limited.
Like Sky Bus, it too has a vision to begin international routes to service connections throughout East Africa. This has not been realized. Moreover, its two-tiered fleet consisting of buses slightly more comfortable than the hunks of rusty metal leaving Legahar and Autobis Terra, and a “luxury class” serving limited routes, is largely skewed to the former. In fact, out of the 10 daily trips the company makes chances are that the only bus travelling with the comforts of less crowding, packed cold food options and a single television screen is beginning its two-day journey to Mekelle for 200 Birr.
Although Selam may not have reached the level of success envisioned, it may not be for lack of opportunity. If Sky Bus can effectively hit its targeted 20 different destinations with ticket prices ranging from 130-180 Birr, its added choice to travellers seems viable. This is buoyed by the public’s decision to purchase 24.8 million Birr in shares until March, possibly spurred by the sales pitch citing the existence of just one seat per about 1,500 of Ethiopia’s roughly 80 million inhabitants.
Berhanu Kebede, General Manager of Selam Bus, however, does not see the new upstart as a worry for his company. “Sky Bus is really not that different from what we offer,” says Berhanu. “We are not really worried as it is an unsaturated market.”
Finding a Middle Ground
According to the company's research, one third of the passengers using these Autobis Terra buses would like a change
Sky Bus is poised to sandwich its way in between the cheaper (about half of the company’s projected prices) but wanting public buses and the offerings of the flag carrier, Ethiopian Airlines. Though EAL serves up 15 destinations across the country in less than three hours the experience is certainly not flawless. And Ethiopian’s 933 Birr for a roundtrip to Bahir Dar is still 600 Birr more than a Sky Bus ticket, though it does save two days for the time pressed.
“In our feasibility study involving 70,000 people (including 30,000 public bus users) 36.9% said they would be willing to pay our projected ticket prices for the services we will offer,” says an optimistic Solomon.
Sky Bus may also capture the tourists who must fork over 2,237 Birr (non-resident price) for that same Bahir Dar trip via Ethiopian Airlines and who may be drawn by the prospect of seeing the countryside. Though Ethiopia’s 340,000 tourists in 2007 put it among the lowest ranked in sub-Saharan Africa in the World Economic Forum’s travel and tourism competitiveness index, a relatively stable geopolitical situation, government incentives and a variety of attractions mean this sector is poised for growth.
Sky Bus is still optimistic with its successes in capital raising and eyes squared on the 6.8 million annual passengers and cash flow of about 325.9 million Birr. Moreover, with the 35 billion Birr earmarked for the third phase (2008-2010) of the government’s huge Road Sector Development Program (RSDP), Sky Bus will have a lot more asphalt to work with. With examples in mind such as many Asian tourist markets where backpackers are ushered cross-country in droves with the comforts of A/C, movies and seats reclining almost to beds and at cutthroat prices, the Ethiopian market has long-range goals to shoot for.
“We are following the lead of EAL to redefine public transport as not just travel from A to B but an enjoyable experience,” an enthusiastic Solomon said.
Hi sky bus management how are you doing? I think you are doing good. I apritiate what you are tring to do again very good effort. I know you can do it.(KORAHUBACHHU) am gonna try to buy more shar. Keep up your effort. Good bless you , Good bless Ethipia. wishing you all the best!!!
Meti Yilma is a radio show host, poet, writer, MC, one time tv
personality and a number of other things besides. Including, a top 4 finisher in 2006's Survivor Africa.
Sehin Teferra
is a freelance trainer and consultant with an academic background in
international development and gender equity. She has written since her teens, and invites your comments and
thoughts on her observations.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
There is no question that there is a lot of agricultural investment occurring in Ethiopia right now. The question is how much of that is being initiated by Ethiopians?
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
Despite a global downturn in real estate prices, it seemed like Ethiopia's market was impervious to it all. But there are signs which point to an inevitable downturn in the near future. Just how far down prices will go is anybody's guess.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
After emigrating abroad, going to school and then opening a successful business in London, it only took a vacation to Tewodros Tadesse's hometown of Hawassa to convince him to leave everything behind and move back once and for all.
Take a tour of Addis in grand style on the Habesha City Tour Bus. With a modern, comfortable double decker bus as your transport, you're sure to get the best views of town while in motion.
ESAI celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Horizon Ethiopia would like to congratulate them on their achievements through the years and wishes them another decade and more of continued success.
He’s broken every record he’s ever gone for so what mission are we talking about? Here’s a clue…it has absolutely nothing to do with sports.
Internet connection rates take another dive.
Coffee Round Table held at Hilton right after EAFCA 2010 and ECX's launch of Direct Specialty Trade.
One year after opening its 60 million Birr share offering in England, the United States (US) and Ethiopia, Sky Bus Transport System SC has reached over half its target in its quest to become the premier long distance road service provider. The company hopes to begin importing Mercedes high-deck (second largest in a class of four) buses at the beginning of 2009 with the over 32 million Birr it has raised at the time of going to press.
There is no question that there is a lot of agricultural investment occurring in Ethiopia right now. The question is how much of that is being initiated by Ethiopians?
Despite a global downturn in real estate prices, it seemed like Ethiopia's market was impervious to it all. But there are signs which point to an inevitable downturn in the near future. Just how far down prices will go is anybody's guess.
After emigrating abroad, going to school and then opening a successful business in London, it only took a vacation to Tewodros Tadesse's hometown of Hawassa to convince him to leave everything behind and move back once and for all.
ESAI celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Horizon Ethiopia would like to congratulate them on their achievements through the years and wishes them another decade and more of continued success.
