Category Archives: Agents

Antarctica is slowly emerging as one of the most sought-after destinations by UAE’s cruise travellers, who are always on the search for something exotic and different. To help those who are still on the lookout for a tour operator that could take them to this new dream destination, India-based ‘The Q Experiences’ has announced a trip to Antarctica on a luxury cruise, starting from December 9, 2017. This will be an 11-day curated trip to the exotic, ice crowned continent, also rightly known as the White Continent. Speaking about this new adventure trip in the offing, Vasim Shaikh, founder of The Q Experiences said, “We have received tremendous response for this trip from the GCC countries. At The Q, it is our constant endeavour to create memories that last a lifetime for all our travellers; we are keen on creating a similar experience for our Gulf travellers as well, and we are hopeful to see more travellers from this region to join us in this trip of a lifetime”.

After its successful attempt at integrating the Visa Checkout facility with its tajawal.ae domain in January 2017, the Dubai-based travel-booking website has further collaborated with Visa to provide Visa Checkout to its customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. tajawal is now rolling out the service across multiple markets to provide its users in the region with the most convenient booking process possible. Visa Checkout offers cardholders a simple and secure digital payment method that allows for registered users to complete their purchase at the click of a button. By logging into their Visa Checkout account, payment and billing information are automatically populated, eliminating the step to manually enter the information with every purchase. Ahmed Gaber, Visa’s General Manager for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, said, “Innovations like Visa Checkout help to remove friction from the e-commerce payment process, bringing significant benefits to both the customer and the merchant. With Visa Checkout integrated into its systems, tajawal can now offer its customers an online payment experience that is as easy, convenient, and seamless as swiping a Visa card in a traditional retail setting.” To promote Visa Checkout as a payment option on tajawal.sa, a special offer has been introduced on all flight and hotel bookings that can be availed by registered users who choose to pay with Visa Checkout on tajawal.sa until August 18, 2017.

Gold Medal, a leading UK travel company, has heralded Abu Dhabi as one of the most popular destinations for this summer, following a surge in the number of British holidaymakers visiting the United Arab Emirates this year. Offering a variety of online travel services and products, including airfares, hotel reservations and car rentals to travel agents, Gold Medal has reported a 294 per cent year-on-year increase in the summer 2017 holiday bookings than 2016 holiday bookings from the UK to the UAE capital. British travel agents will get to sample for themselves the many attractions of Abu Dhabi when Etihad Airways and the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA) host a large familiarisation visit to the emirate in September. They will be able to sample the cultural attractions, beaches, sports facilities and excellent hospitality for which Abu Dhabi is increasingly renowned.

At the glamourous Arabian Travel Awards held a few hours ago in Dubai, the dynamic and globally acclaimed Kulwant Singh, Founder and Managing Director, Lama Group, was felicitated with the Face of the Future award. Singh, with his hard work, business acumen and conviction, nurtured a small company of a few people to grow into an empire of 500 professional and skilled employees, spread across Europe, Russia, China, India, the Philippines and the CIS countries. Even within the GCC, he has offices in Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Taking his business beyond core travel and tourism, he has now successfully ventured also into marketing, representations, hotels and restaurants. Recently, his company has launched new products, namely, Luxury Yacht Cruises, Dhow Cruises, Hummer Safaris and Explore Arabia – a day long encounter in true Arabian style.

Recognising and applauding the tourism tigers of the Middle East, DDP presented the first-ever Arabian Travel Awards on July 4, 2017, at the JW Marriott Hotel Dubai in Deira. Over 150 notable personalities of the Middle East travel and tourism sector were present to honour and acknowledge the achievements of their brightest gems. Dr Tanushree Pandey, Gladrags Mrs India, along with SanJeet, Mentor, Arabian Travel Awards, and Sumeera Bahl, Director, Durga Das Publications, handed out the awards to the winners. Due recognition was given to each sector in the industry through 48 categories of awards. Welcoming the guests, SanJeet, said, “With Arabian Travel Awards, we aim at identifying and encouraging talent of all kinds in the tourism sector. Owing to these stars, the graph of the Middle East tourism industry has touched remarkable heights. It is our pleasure to honour them for their achievements. This initiative will help encourage more talent to develop and take this vibrant industry to a much higher level.”

Celebrating the hard work of the key stalwarts in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries in the Middle East, Durga Das Publications today presents the maiden Arabian Travel Awards at JW Marriott Hotel Dubai in Deira. There will be four types of awards: Personal Awards, Business Awards, Trending Awards and Partner Awards. The sub-categories will include awards for Best Business Hotel, Best Family Friendly Hotel, Best City Hotel, Best Green Hotel, Best Leisure Hotel, Best Destination Management Company, Best Hotel Apartments, Best B2B Travel Portal, Best Luxury Hotel and the likes. The Arabian Travel Awards are following a systematic method of internet-based voting. These awards are supported by Tourism Breaking News Middle East, TravelTV.news, TravTalk Middle East and TravTalk India who are premier media partners for extensive coverage.

Cleartrip has officially launched a website in Arabic to support its GCC market expansion efforts and provide users in the region with localized browsing and booking capability. The new website includes content and promotions relevant for Arabic-speaking audiences and comes with a host of useful features, tools and functionalities designed to allow travellers to more easily make and manage reservations. There are also exciting offers and benefits displayed on the website which the users can make use of when booking online through Cleartrip. Cleartrip’s website experienced a 30% increase in traffic from mobile devices during the first week of Ramadan, and the launch of a dedicated website in Arabic is expected to further accelerate bookings. Innovations in payment security, along with the launch of new government initiatives in the UAE and the proliferation of e-commerce startups, have increased consumer trust in online payments. This, in turn, is expanding the market opportunity for Cleartrip.

In line with its strategy to enhance consumer experience, Wall Street Exchange has launched a reloadable multi-currency Visa prepaid card, powered by Najm, the financial arm of Majid Al Futtaim. This enables customers to lock in a favourable currency rate before travel, thereby saving them from being affected by any currency fluctuations.The cardholders can create free currency wallets of up to six currencies from a choice of 12 and also withdraw cash from any ATM worldwide that accepts Visa. Sultan Al Mahmoud, Acting Managing Director of Wall Street Exchange, said, “The online payment market in the region is maturing now and consumers are seeking higher security and flexibility in card usage, which makes prepaid cards the preferred option. In prepaid cards, consumers are seeking more innovative features, and Wall Street Exchange is committed to cater to the emerging needs of the users by introducing attractive and innovative features in our cards, along with the ease of use.”

Musafir.com, UAE’s first home-grown, premium-experience travel website, has signed a new regional GCC agreement with Amadeus, a leading technology partner in the global travel industry, to further enhance its e-commerce offering. The agreement will see Amadeus provide the company with its industry-leading business intelligence technologies and access to global travel content through the Amadeus system, for the benefit of Musafir.com’s customers across the GCC region. The company’s website will be powered with Amadeus’ latest advanced solutions such as Master Pricer, Business Intelligence, Fare Optimiser and Productivity Tracker to make the booking experience more efficient and convenient. “Forming strategic agreement with global industry leaders such as Amadeus allows us to access premium travel products and further boost our technological progressions, which is something that matters most to our customers and partners. We are therefore delighted to be partnering with Amadeus who will lend us their extensive expertise and consultancy and fuel our future growth,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani, Chairman of the Department of Statistics and Community Development and co-founder of Musafir.com.

Travelport recently announced a multi-year agreement with Mezoon International Travel & Tours (MITT), an affiliate of BCD Travel and one of the largest travel agencies in the Sultanate of Oman. With this agreement, MITT will have access to Travelport’s unrivalled travel content and benefit from its intelligent, fast and accurate search and booking facility to offer its customers information of more than 400 airlines, including low-cost and network carriers, more than 650,000 hotel properties and more than 37,000 car rental locations around the world. MITT can also take advantage of Travelport Smartpoint as its agency desktop to search beyond rates and availability to book a more personalised and tailored travel for its customers, work smarter and subsequently, increase revenues. Riyaz Kuttery, Chief Operating Officer, MITT, commented, “We are delighted by this agreement and look forward to benefitting from Travelport’s content and merchandising capabilities. Travellers have been increasingly expecting more choice and personalization when booking travel and Travelport’s customer-centric technology will enable us to deliver better quality service as well as give our business a continuing opportunity to grow.” Matt Powell, Managing Director, Middle East and South Asia, Travelport, added, “Travelport welcomes one of the Middle East’s leading travel agencies as our newest partner in the region. To maintain their leadership in today’s competitive world of travel, Mezoon needs access to both extensive global travel choice as well as the very best travel booking technology, and this has remained our focus and an area in which we have continued to invest and lead.”