2500+ exhibitors @ATM 2017
With a focus on strengthening inbound and outbound markets, the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2017 is back at the Dubai World Trade Centre from April 24-27. With more than 2,500 exhibiting companies participating, the event promises to improve connections,
At the Arabian Travel Market this year, we are pleased to be able to showcase yet another layer of Sharjah’s diverse tourism portfolio. For many years we have focused on positioning Sharjah as a perfect family destination for discovering heritage and culture supported by a broad edutainment opportunity. This year we are delighted to offer Sharjah’s outdoor tourism as a product to the market, packaged as an ‘incredible experience,’ the diversity available in the Emirate from mountains to mangroves, desert to coast and wadis to wetlands is breathtaking; large areas are under protection to ensure they remain unspoilt.
The investment and development in interpretation centres across the emirate ensures that all visitors can gain maximum enjoyment from their time outdoors. Inbound tourism to Sharjah is buoyant and we are seeing the accommodation sector rising to the challenges faced by high occupancy as we continue to implement our Marhabtain programme ensuring that visitors throughout the emirate receive the very best service and feel welcome while they are here.
Inbound tourism to
Dubai grew at 12 per cent Year-on-Year. ATM serves as a platform to highlight the factors behind Dubai’s appeal to a diverse range of travellers. We are looking forward to showcasing Dubai’s everevolving destination proposition to the international travel trade community. On the stand at ATM this year we’ll also be highlighting several new initiatives of our own including Dubai Sustainable Tourism updates and our new industry training ‘Dubai Expert’ which Dubai College of Tourism will showcase – and much more. Issam Abdul Rahim Kazim CEO
Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM)
This year, GTA will promote the preferred destinations from across Europe, Asia Pacific & the Americas. We will be relaunching the special Strategic Partnership Program (SPP) of Dubai, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong & Singapore; showcasing the expansion of our loyalty programme g shop; and launching exclusive Geneva shop campaign from May 1 to July 31, 2017. GTA’s key marketing strategy is to provide multiple contracting choices to travellers, while providing an effective support with immediate solutions that reflects our main focus, which is to employ technology to make it easy for travel agents to sell more. Rami Mashini
Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Middle East, Africa, Turkey & India, GTA
Compared to global hotspots like Hong Kong and Singapore, Dubai has emerged to be the 4th most visited city on the planet this year, and traffic rose by 10 per cent compared to last year. Further, in the
GCC, there are difficulties in obtaining a visa, few internationally active intermediaries, such as professional congress organisers and destination management companies, and a limited market for congresses. But at the same time the success can largely be attributed to the excellent airlift into Dubai and Abu Dhabi which is home to Emirates and Etihad, respectively.
The Arabian Travel Market is one of the most important events in the travel exhibition calendar and an ideal platform to highlight the business developments and product innovations of the airline to the travel and tourism industry. This event also brings together key stakeholders within the travel space for productive meetings, seminars, panels and much more and we look forward to networking and cultivating stronger relationships with our trade partners, which in turn creates highly targeted business and growth opportunities for the airline.
We hope that we can have significant results this year by having double digit growth of the Middle East arrivals. This is supported by the replenishment of direct flights from the Middle East to Indonesia’s main destinations. Likewise, Banyuwangi, a regency located in East Java, is considering to create ‘halal beach’, where there is area separation between women and men. In 2016, Indonesia welcomed 240,989 ME tourists. This number increased by 32.31 per cent compared to 2015 with 182,143 arrivals. Although the proportion is still small, the growth of ME region market is always magnificent and the spending rate of ME tourists doubled the rate spending of all our markets.
We are releasing series of packages and special promotional deals for the upcoming season for the Middle East and Indian markets.The inbound tourism industry plays a vital role in the countries’ economy. Our marketing strategy is a mix of branding, printed ads and marketing materials and social networking. Relationship and word of mouth are still the best strategy for B2B. Consumer attitudes are changing; people want to experience deeper emotional and personal connection when they travel – more people are focused on ‘experiencing’ a destination by connecting to its history, people, culture & food.