Tag Archives: qatar

The coastal gateway of Krabi, Thailand, welcomed the inaugural Qatar Airways flight to arrive at its international airport from Doha, Qatar. The Airbus A330-200 was greeted by a water salute to usher in the new four times weekly service to Southern Thailand’s west coast. On board the inaugural flight was Qatar Airways Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific, Marwan Koleilat, and Thailand’s Ambassador to Qatar, His Excellency Soonthorn Chaiyindeepum. With the launch of this new service Qatar Airways has become the first Middle Eastern airline to provide scheduled services to Krabi, providing fast and convenient access to one of the world’s most popular tourism regions. Travellers can now enjoy year-round services to the incredible islands of Phi Phi National Park, while also enjoying other cultural experiences in the Southern Thai province famous for stunning land and seascapes, world-class diving, national parks and eco-tours.

Air Canada is expanding its reach within the Middle East and aims to tap new markets such as Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman. The only four star international network carrier in North America, Air Canada celebrated one year of their operations in Dubai recently in the presence of Margaret Skinner, Director Sales EMEAI, Air Canada. Skinner says that the Dreamliner is a game changer for them, but now they have upgraded it to a Boeing 777 for the convenience of the passengers travelling from Dubai – Toronto route and vice versa. Deepu Cyriac, Country Manager for UAE/GCC, Air Canada, stated that they recently opened BSP in Kuwait. They are further expanding their services to have SPA partnerships with Qatar Airways, Kuwait Airways, Oman Air and Saudi Arabian Airline to travel via Dubai and London to more destinations in Canada. This flexibility has seen a very good growth from the region. They are currently serving a very good mix of markets around the region.

Qatar Airways has announced a code-share partnership with Air Botswana, offering Qatar Airways travellers access to three key destinations in Botswana, Africa. The partnership with Air Botswana, the national airline of Botswana, will provide Qatar Airways passengers with connections to the Botswana cities of Gaborone, Francistown and Maun via Qatar Airways’ South Africa gateway Johannesburg. Qatar Airways operates double-daily flights between Johannesburg and its state-of-the-art hub, Hamad International Airport in Doha, with onward flights to more than 150 destinations worldwide. The new code-share agreement allows business and leisure travellers fast and convenient access to the home of Botswana’s rich mineral industry, abundant game reserves, and luxury safari lodges. Botswana’s luxurious tourism experiences are complemented by Qatar Airways’ ultra-modern fleet of aircraft featuring the world’s best Business Class on services to South Africa.

A new free entry transit visa effective from November 1, 2016 was announced by Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism Authority for travellers to explore the destination within 96 hours.  This scheme allows passengers with layovers of five hours or more in Hamad International Airport to request a complimentary transit visa. The new system will allow transiting passengers of all nationalities to enter Qatar for up to 96 hours in between flights. All visas are granted at the sole discretion of the Qatari Ministry of Interior. Passengers can apply for their free transit visa through any of Qatar Airways’ offices, or online. To be eligible for the transit visa, passengers must have a confirmed ticket for a journey into Qatar, with a confirmed onward journey out of Qatar on a Qatar Airways-operated flight. Terms and conditions apply, which can be found at qatarairways.com/transitvisa

Over 50 travel agents and tour operators from Dubai and Sharjah attended the Educational seminar session conducted by Qatar Airways and Orange County. The event took place at Raffles Dubai in association with AVIAREPS the representative for ME region for Orange County. They shared the importance of the destination and the many facilities, language, social etiquette etc to welcome guests from the ME region. Glenn Johnston, Vice President Corporate Communications & Public Relations, GM, UAE/Middle East, AVIAREPS, reiterated key ways to reach out to the clients with the many value added options with the one year partnership with Qatar Airways. They also launched the special privilege e-card for the travel agents and tour operators.

Doha has 41 projects and 11,722 rooms in its hotel construction pipeline, according to a new report. The Doha Hotel Construction Overview report by TOPHOTELPROJECTS prepared exclusively for The Hotel Show Dubai 2016, reveals that Doha is the 3rd busiest city in the Middle East and Africa for hotel construction, behind only Dubai (133 projects) and Riyadh (47 projects). Doha’s busiest year for hotel openings is forecast to be 2017 with 14 new properties entering the market, including: Pullman Doha West Bay (468 rooms), JW Marriott West Bay (297 rooms), Hilton Garden Inn Doha Al Sadd (225 rooms), and Millennium Plaza Doha (232 rooms). The five-star Millennium Plaza Doha will open as part of the new Barwa Al Sadd development located in the heart of Doha. Comprised of four high rise towers offering commercial, residential and office space, the major project, currently under construction, will also offer a range of restaurants, shops and recreational facilities. Kassab added: “Barwa Al Sadd is set to be an exciting new addition to the city for both visitors and residents. Millennium Plaza Doha will be the only hotel within the development, offering an ideal base for business and leisure trips as well as for residents looking for a central location for business meetings, dining or celebrations.” TOPHOTELPROJECTS will present on development hotspots in the Middle East and Africa including Doha at the 4th edition of The Hotel Show Dubai’s annual Vision Conference, part of the “Update on market and consumer patterns and trends: get the inside track” panel discussion on 18th September 2016, 11:00-11:50am.

Emirates will add two additional daily flights to Doha, effective October 30, 2016 making it nine daily flights to the Qatar capital. Emirates currently operates seven daily flights to Doha, and the addition of the two services will grow the airline’s presence in Qatar and take the total number of weekly Emirates flights to 63. So far in 2016, over half a million passengers have travelled on the Dubai-Doha service. In the first three months of 2016, there was a 26 per cent spike in visitor volumes to Dubai from Qatar over the previous year (according to Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing). The timings of the new Doha services have also been scheduled to facilitate shorter connection times to popular destinations in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Cebu and Clark. Furthermore, the new flights introduce convenient connections to popular European destinations such as Lisbon and Larnaca, Capetown in Africa and Los Angeles in the US, increasing access to key business and leisure centres both east and westbound. Through its hub, Emirates will also be seamlessly connecting passengers to its extensive route network of over 150 destinations, served by a fleet of all wide body aircraft offering a superior level of comfort as well as the latest products and services on board for customers. The airline’s network also encompasses more than 40 cities around the globe served by the iconic Emirates A380.