Tag Archives: Dubai

FORM Hotel Dubai has announced the opening of its flagship property, located in the heart of Dubai’s cultural village, in the Al Jadaf neighbourhood.  The 15-storey hotel also represents the latest addition to the prestigious Design Hotels™ collection; the first Dubai-based member to be selected. The property merges an emphasis on well being with a carefully curated design concept, offering technology-driven and customised travel experiences to business and leisure travelers alike. As such, FORM Hotel Dubai is proud to bring a unique and unchartered concept to the UAE hotel market. The property, with its 136-rooms, presents four room configurations including the cozy, ideal, plus+ and the mega with starting room rates at AED 349 per night inclusive of breakfast, exclusive of taxes and 5 per cent VAT. The special opening rate during the Eid period guests can avail starting night rates of AED 224 per night inclusive of breakfast, exclusive of taxes and 5 per cent VAT. Conveniently positioned close to the Dubai International Airport, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa, Dubai Design District (d3), and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), FORM Hotel Dubai is carved from an Architecture Studio-designed structure that relives the origins of Dubai’s heritage. Inside, art deco-inspired bespoke furniture — also by the Paris-based Architecture Studio — fills guestrooms alongside custom-crafted art and photography by Nina Dietzel, for an understated yet sharp interior that is at once timeless and contemporary.

Emirates has introduced Home Check-in, a new service which will allow its customers to check in for their flights from anywhere in Dubai. The service is available for customers across all classes travelling on Emirates flights. The new service enables Emirates passengers to complete the security check and check-in from the comfort of their home, hotel or office and have their luggage transported to the airport prior to their flight. An Emirates check-in agent will arrive at the preferred location to weigh and tag the bags as well as check-in the customers and issue boarding passes. Customers can then make their own way to the airport and head directly to immigration, bypassing the check-in desks at the airport. The service is available for AED 350 per trip for up to 7 pieces of luggage. AED 35 will be charged for each additional piece of luggage. Customers can book the service on emirates.com up to 12 hours before flight departure time. Emirates has been running trials for its Home Check-in service since October to ensure that the customer experience and security checks are faultless. The service seals each bag and stores them in a separate hold in the van. Emirates Home Check-in will be operated with a new fleet of vans. The new Home Check-in offering complements other luggage handling services already available for Emirates flights in Dubai.

Emirates has unveiled its new Boeing 777-300ER First Class Private Suite at the ongoing Arabian Travel Market in Dubai. The airline is also showcasing its latest Boeing 777 Business Class seat, the A380 onboard lounge, along with other products such as the First Class Shower Spa and the latest version of its Economy Class seats. Visitors can experience the Emirates network through an interactive 60 second challenge played on a touchscreen route map. Last year, the airline launched new passenger routes to Newark via Athens, Zagreb and Phnom Penh, and later this year, Emirates will begin services to London Stanstead and Santiago de Chile. This year marks Emirates’ 25th year of partnership and commitment to ATM. When the exhibition first opened its doors in 1993, Emirates flew 15 aircraft to 32 destinations and carried 2 million passengers. The Emirates stand at ATM will offer visitors a chance to experience the airline’s recently-launched products and service enhancements. The game changing, fully enclosed first-class private suites on exhibit have floor to ceiling sliding doors, soft leather seating, high-tech control panels and mood lighting. Incorporating cutting-edge technology, the suites also feature several world-firsts, including ‘virtual windows’ using real-time fibre-optic camera technology, a NASA inspired ‘zero-gravity’ seating position and a personal video-call service.

His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, has inaugurated Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2018 today, marking the start of the 25th edition of the show. He was joined by Nick Pilbream, Divisional Director, Reed Travel Exhibitions, and other VIPs who embarked on a tour of the exhibition as the four-day industry showcase got underway. This year’s show, held at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 22-25, 2018, has more than 400 main stand holders with representation from over 150 countries. With more than 40,000 visitors expected to attend, ATM 2018 will showcase over 2,500 exhibiting companies and 65 national pavilions. ATM 2018 has adopted Responsible Tourism – including sustainable travel trends – as its main theme and this will be integrated across all show verticals and activities. Arabian Travel Market celebrated its silver jubilee with over 2,500 exhibitors and 40,000 industry professionals from 150 countries. Travel trade professionals from across the world’s hospitality industry will showcase the largest exhibition of regional and global hotel brands, with hotels comprising 20% of the total show area. ATM 2018 will welcome over 2,500 confirmed exhibitors including 65 national pavilions. More than 100 new exhibitors are set to make their ATM debut this year, including Visit Finland, Guizhou Province of China, Hungarian Tourism Agency, Polish Tourist Organisation, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dubai Municipality Leisure Facilities Department, Yas Experiences, Indigo Airlines, Kurdistan Tourism, Jakarta City Government Tourism and Culture Office and Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, to name a few.

At the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, Wego revealed the ‘MENA Traveller Destination Leaderboards’ that showcases the relative popularity of global destinations amongst travellers based in the MENA region. As the largest online travel marketplace across the MENA region, Wego users shop for tens of millions of trips each quarter and it’s this flight and hotel search data that has been analysed to determine the destination rankings. The leaderboard announced today is for Q1 2018 and subsequent updates will be released shortly after the close of each quarter. Egypt retains its top ranking in Q1 2018 as the most popular destination for travellers, from across the MENA region. “MENA travellers are lured by the culture, scenic attractions, and incredible food that can be experienced in Egypt”, said Mamoun Hmedan, Managing Director – MENA and India, Wego. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia retains its second ranking and received a steady mix of business, expatriate and religious travel. India at the third position and Turkey at the fourth slot stepped up one rung each in the destination leaderboard for Q1 2018 vs Q1 2017, while UAE fell from the third to the fifth position. Despite the overall drop, Dubai remains a popular destination for MENA travellers. The biggest gainer in Q1 2018 was Oman which jumped a massive 9 places to #15, an improvement likely related to the opening of a new airport in Muscat and a host of new hotels and other facilities opening in the Sultanate.

Tamarind Global has gone international by expanding its presence to Dubai, a huge source market for Indian weddings and events. The company already has a presence in Dubai for its tours vertical. It will now offer a bouquet of event and wedding services to support its domestic and international operations from the Dubai office. Weddings and events will be supported by destination selection, planning and budgeting, guest list and vendor management, hospitality, travel and logistics, décor, F&B, entertainment and fashion consultations for the bride and groom wear. Apart from this, MiCE events will also be supported. A team of two will start the base of operations at the Dubai office. Kunal Rai, Vice President – Events and Weddings, will head the Dubai vertical, “With the launch of our Dubai office, Tamarind now offers its services to a ‘global’ audience. We aim to lead the market by providing an all-inclusive bouquet of services to make each event unique, glamorous and memorable.” Elucidating on the reason for expanding to Dubai, he said, “With the progressive growth of the Middle East as a popular destination, Dubai is the best choice to set up a regional HQ. It will act as a start point that will drive maximum output to penetrate primarily the UAE and Middle East market.”

Rove Hotels has launched Rove Dubai Marina, the fifth hotel in Dubai that celebrates the inspired setting of its waterfront location. With its central location and tech-savvy environment for the socially connected new generation, Rove Dubai Marina brings a new hospitality choice to visitors to the city with its stylish marina-front setting. A joint venture between Meraas and Emaar Properties PJSC, Rove Hotels currently has four operational hotels in key locations in Dubai – Rove Downtown, Rove City Centre, Rove Healthcare City and Rove Trade Centre. Several Rove Hotels are being planned in other locations within the city. Rove Dubai Marina has 384 rooms that present a design-influenced lifestyle choice for value-conscious leisure and business travellers. Located centrally in one of the region’s largest waterfront developments, the hotel offers leisure guests the ease of accessing Dubai’s popular beaches as well as a vibrant marina. The Dubai Marina Mall, with a vivid array of retail and leisure choices, is located nearby as well as the Dubai Marina Yacht Club that serves as a prestigious address for marina enthusiasts and The Beach, an upbeat urban waterfront destination created by Meraas.

Emirates is set to add a second daily flight between Dubai and Prague from July 1, 2018, after steadily growing passenger numbers on the route since its launch of operations in July 2010. The flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER with a capacity of 360 seats, boosting inbound tourism through the additional 262,800 seats it will provide. The year-round flight will have a three class configuration offering eight Private Suites in First Class, 42 lie-flat seats in Business and 310 spacious seats in Economy. Emirates‘ flight EK137 will leave Dubai at 15:30 and arrive in Prague at 19:55. The return flight EK138 will depart Prague at 21:35 and arrive in Dubai at 05:30 on the following day, giving travellers a full day in Dubai. The second daily flight will improve Prague’s connectivity to and from a range of destinations in the Emirates network including Far East places like Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Phuket in Thailand, Yangon in Myanmar, Guangzhou in China and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. African destinations of Durban, Dar-Es-Salaam, Harare, Lusaka, Entebbe and Nairobi as well as Auckland and Christchurch in New Zealand and Brisbane in Australia will be easily reached with improved connectivity with a convenient transit in Dubai’s world-class hub.

Nour Aridi, Country Manager, Visit Indonesia Tourist Office along with the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia hosted a brand new campaign to the travel fraternity in Dubai with an interesting presentation. Indonesia, with over 17,000 islands, has some of the best tourist spots in the world. This year, they are on a new venture to promote these picturesque destinations especially to the many travellers in the UAE. It was an exclusive event which discussed and showcased new areas of tourism as well as the infrastructure that will be developed alongside the same. The partners had an opportunity to meet the tourism board officials to discuss further about ways to promote their destination.

Highlighting Dubai’s position as a leading winter cruise destination, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) is on track to welcome 1 million cruise tourists by 2020-21. DTCM also emphasised on the city’s growing popularity as a global cruise destination viable for pre-cruise and post-cruise stopovers, and an apt homeport in the region at the Seatrade Cruise Global in Florida, USA, a leading event for the cruise industry. Exhibited under the Cruise Arabia banner, Dubai Tourism brought together the tourism authorities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain on a unified stand with the goal of promoting the region as a whole, and improving business sustainability and development. The three-day event also saw networking and business opportunities with leading brands in the global cruise industry, to discuss deployments and homeporting opportunities in Dubai to heighten the awareness of the destination’s cruise offerings to a global audience. Hamad Bin Mejren, Senior Vice President, Dubai Tourism, said, “Cruise Tourism is certainly a key industry for the Gulf and we are dedicated to educating consumers around the world about the region as a key winter cruising destination. We have been working to highlight Dubai’s ease of accessibility with the latest introduction of a multi-entry UAE visit visa exclusively for cruise tourists, as well as simplified immigration and cruise-specific visa procedures on our online portals.”