2018 seems to be a year of optimism
As 2018 opens with new regulations in the UAE, there would be a relative shift in the way business would be carried out. More hotel rooms will join this year in the race to Expo 2020 and by the end of the year, there may be some positive changes that can
Sharjah International Airport has continued to grow in capacity year on year. The total number of passengers that passed through the airport in the first 11 months of 2017 grew to 10,481,751 passengers, up from 10,100,249 during the corresponding period last year. The new expansion process of Sharjah International Airport is estimated at approximately AED1.5 billion. It includes many facilities such as the expansion of the passengers’ building, which is expected to increase the capacity to hold up to 20 million passengers by 2027. The new expansion will be carried out progressively over a number of phases, the most important one being the expansion of roads to and from the airport in addition to a host of additional facilities.
Aviation District’s investment plan until 2018 of AED200 million (US$55 million) in the ‘Aerospace Supply Chain’ includes two aerospace supply chain buildings and one Suppliers Complex. We are looking at developing three key areas in Dubai South-residential city, golf city and commercial city. The Emaar/Dubai South project expects 500,000 residents and currently, Dubai South is developing nearly 1,200 plus housing units apart from this project. In terms of hospitality, there will be about 2,000 hotel rooms with three or four international hotels being constructed in the premises. The Dubai South general aviation is one component, MRO is another component. Roads and other infrastructure facilities are being completed including the extension of the Etihad Rail as we prepare for Expo 2020.
Jumeirah continues to strengthen its position as one of the most successful UAE home-grown brands on a global scale. Our strong performance in 2017 is evidence of our robust and progressive business strategy. We are confident of continuing the success story in new markets in 2018. We believe that our strength lies in our ability to understand the needs of our guests and in creating bespoke luxury inspired by Arabic hospitality and charm. This achievement comes with the support and vision of the UAE’s leadership whose continued focus on building the tourism and hospitality sector has helped us to deliver business success.
2018 is set to be an incredibly exciting year for Tourism Authority Thailand (TAT). Last month, TAT announced the opening of the Michelin Guide Bangkok 2018. The guide positions Thailand as a world-class dining destination, therefore food will be a huge focus for us throughout 2018. With food and medical tourism industries booming in Thailand, we continue to dominate the growing market. What sets Thailand apart from other countries are factors such as low cost of medical treatment, high quality of treatment provided by private medical centres and the highly developed tourism industry. We hope to increase the number of people visiting Thailand for medical treatments and procedures via various initiatives this year.
As we put together the final touches to the programme for AHIC 2018, it is clear from our conversations with hotel investors, owners and operators alike that there are opportunities across the Middle East hospitality sector for more diverse product. There is a focus on the midmarket, serviced apartments and branded residences in the UAE, while in Ras Al
Khaimah, where AHIC will take place from
April 17-19, there are numerous investment opportunities, for example on Al Marjan Island. Our global project showcase at AHIC will present such developments to investors and we predict that there will be further initiatives like these throughout the region to expand the offering for leisure travellers, thus compensating for the decline regional economies have witnessed from the corporate segment.
This year has been a positive one for
Amadeus as we maintained growth in the first three quarters of the year and all of our businesses performed well. We had important developments in our client relationships as we signed and renewed significant deals with leading industry players such as Al Tayyar Travel Group, flydubai and others. Around 15 airlines from the Middle East and North Africa entered into a 10-year framework agreement with Amadeus for distribution services, led by the Arab Air Carriers Association (AACO). The airlines participating in the framework agreement will serve over 1 billion passengers during the 10 year duration of the agreement that follows a previous 10 year contract with 13 AACO airlines, signed in 2008. Given the steady progression of our MENA businesses and wider confidence in the region’s travel industry, we look forward to optimism into 2018.
Travelport will remain tightly focused on delivering the fastest, easiest to connect to and the most seamless omni-channel experiences available for travel providers, travel agents and end-users. Our best-in-class mobile solutions will play a pivotal role in helping us achieve this in 2018, as smartphones become the tool of choice for booking as well as researching travel, serving as increasingly powerful aids for enhancing experiences throughout the trip lifestyle. This trend, which will escalate faster in the Middle East than most regions due to its large pool of tech savvy, travel hungry millennials; will ultimately give travel agents and travel providers more opportunities than ever before to engage with customers, build satisfaction and drive revenue. Travelport will also continue to invest in OTA technology next year. Our investments will be centered on enhancing our machine learning capabilities, market carrier analytics, industrialised cache solutions in the Cloud and asynchronous search, so we can deliver improvements in speed, ‘bookability’ and optimisation.
Our focus is to deepen customer engagements, enhance technology and most importantly, release sensible commercials for our trade partners! On a positive note, Gold Medal has recorded the highest ever topline growth in the current financial year. On the other side, the increase in document count signifies that there’s more travel happening with customer demographic remaining unchanged! The only challenge lies in making every customer experience personalised, offering value for money and showing a true passion to travel business. Knowing this, we keep fine-tuning our commercials often, conduct more customer engagement programmes and interesting frontline incentives for agents. Gold Medal’s strategy is to invest more on technology aspect to enhance our B2B booking engine time to time. In proportionate to the business growth, it is our commitment to provide a hassle-free customer experience with our 24/7 customer care centre.