Going all out to woo the Chinese
dubai — Meraas has launched a new initiative — Hala China — to attract Chinese visitors to the UAE in line with Dubai’s Tourism Vision 2020 strategy.
The new initiative has been launched in collaboration with Dubai Holding and DXB Entertainments. It aims to organise events and create tourism packages catered to Chinese visitors, according to a statement.
‘Hala China’ will aim to complement Dubai’s events calendar by creating an annual schedule of events hosted at the destinations of these 3 companies that aims to showcase Dubai and the UAE to Chinese tourists. The initiative will also see the creation of new tourism packages that cater to Chinese visitors in 7 categories — stay, shop, eat, play, explore, wellness and concierge.
‘Hala China’ will see several key government ministries and companies in Dubai and China team up to organise events.
Abdulla Al Habbai, group chairman at Meraas, said: “Leveraging the phenomenal success of Dubai’s first-ever Chinese New Year celebrations at City Walk, where Meraas welcomed 22,000 Chinese Chinese New Year celebrations visitors across its destinations, the ‘Hala China’ initiative will enable Meraas to build on the tremendous progress that has been already made towards this end.
“In doing so, we have a unique opportunity to share the story of our city with an increasingly mobile Chinese audience, while extending an invitation to come and explore the possibilities we are creating for a whole new generation of entrepreneurs, business travellers, holidaymakers and communities.”
Meraas is a long-time supporter of Dubai’s strategic tourism roadmap, Tourism Vision 2020, and its key objective of attracting 20 million visitors to the emirate by 2020 — the same year that Dubai will host Expo 2020.
Meanwhile, Chinese outbound tourism expenditure reached $261 billion in 2016, roughly 21 per cent of the world market, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organisation.