Tourism Breaking News
Day one of the fourth edition of the Gulf Travel Show ended with its pre-planned meetings for VIP buyers with over 500 meetings. SanJeet Director DDP Group opened the show welcoming all the exhibitors and buyers to the fourth edition of the Gulf Travel Show.
Tourism Malaysia participating for the fourth time at the fourth edition of the Gulf Travel Show (GTS) from 22nd to 23rd March 2022. As a platinum partner, Malaysia is having its own virtual pavilion with 15 booths consisting of tourism boards, tour operators and hotels and resorts such as Tourism Malaysia Dubai, Tourism Malaysia Jeddah, Sabah Tourism Board, Sarawak Tourism Board, Tourism Selangor, Asian Overland Services, Universal Holidays travel and tours, World Express tours Malaysia, Sunway hotels and resorts, Banyan Tree Kuala Lumpur, New World Petaling Jaya hotel, Dash Box Hotels, Lexis hotels and resorts, Berjaya hotels and resorts and Gembox.
Following this year’s participation, Mr Manoharan Periasamy, the Senior Director of Tourism Malaysia’s International Promotion Division for Asia & Africa said that it is their fourth consecutive time to participate in the Gulf Travel Show and they continued to participate as they received a very good response and this has been a platform which brought together exhibitors from Malaysia to meet and network with partners from the Middle East. “We are very happy to announce that we will be opening our borders from 1st April 2022 this year to all international travelers and those fully vaccinated do not need to quarantine. Gulf Travel Show provided us the opportunity to connect and engage with partners from the Gulf region and promote our destination and keep them up to date about the latest information on Malaysia. We are hoping to physically meet our travel partners very soon in Malaysia or when we attend Arabian Travel Market in May. We will also be conducting our own roadshow this year. Some of the main strategies we are working on this year will be to work with airlines and travel agents. These will be joint campaigns working with airlines and travel agents within the Gulf region and our two offices in Dubai and Jeddah will be working on these campaigns as well as customer centric of B2C promotions in the region. Prior to pandemic in 2019, Middle East has always been one of our main source markets with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman as the leading markets. A key driver from this market is connectivity as all Middle Eastern carriers connect with Malaysia and pre pandemic revenue from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was highest compared to any other country. With the opening we are hoping to achieve 30% to 40% from travelers by third quarter of this year from the Middle East region. We are now ready to welcome all travelers and have new products in Genting and Desaru coast. We are promtign Desaru Coast as a high end luxury destination with new properties coming up from Hard Rock to Anantara and One and Only. We are participating as I said for the fourth consecutive time at the Gulf Travel Show as it is a very good platform where we can engage and meet with buyers from the region and we look forward to welcoming them to our destination very soon. “
The special industry expert sessions started off at the auditorium with a new era of tourism moderated by Nasir Jamal Khan CEO of Al Naboodah Travel. The panelists included Daniel Rosado – Director – Spain tourism, Matthias Albrecht – Director Switzerland tourism and Ivana Karanikic – General Manager – Prolingua Travel. Followed by a session on sustainability in hospitality moderated by Iftikhar Hamdani – Area Manager HMH Hospitality Sharjah and Ajman with Wael El Behi – General Manager Tower Plaza Hotel, John Arnold – Director – Green-Good Eco-Tech FZCO and Joe Barron – Commercial Director – Infinity Water Systems. In keeping with what’s trending in the region today Mamoun Hmedan CCO and Managing Director MENA and India of Wego shared the latest booking strategies. In a few days, we embark upon the Holy month of Ramadan hence Chris Gregory Pasha – Sales Director Sojern shares an update on Ramadan Travel. Women play a pivotal role in travel and tourism, this time we featured two women leaders from the UAE (Emirati women leaders) to share their experiences in travel leadership in a very interesting discussion with Deepa Iyer Director PR & Marketing – Cozmo Travel.
