For international tourists throughout the Middle East, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) outlines a number of ways travellers can support independent Thai brands, social enterprises and community projects to ensure a sustainable future for all. “More than 21% of Thailand’s GDP comes from tourism revenue, meaning that the current worldwide travel restrictions has had a significant impact on the Thai economy, with many independent businesses suffering and individuals left out of work,” said Pichaya Saisaengchan, Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand for Dubai and the Middle East. “TAT is keen to support local and shed light on how tourists can continue to back grassroots businesses, despite not being able to visit ‘Amazing Thailand’ at the moment. Assisting independent makers, creators and services is the key to maintaining the long-term sustainability of the tourism industry and shows the strength of our community to emerge stronger than ever before.” The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has introduced a number of initiatives to help small businesses generate revenue during the lockdown period, including the launch of online marketplace, ‘Amazing Market’. With over 20,000 members, the platform connects shopper to sellers, offering a free place for local communities, entrepreneurs and restaurants to promote their products such as fruits and vegetables, textiles and accessories, and encouraging locals and residents to support local.

JA Resorts & Hotels focuses on flexibility and adaptability as they introduced a new wave of strategies, policies and tools for travel trade partners including new booking technologies, a new website dedicated to travel industry professionals, new B2B communication tools and e-learning opportunities, incentive schemes and fully flexible cancellation policies. Thomas Grundner, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, JA Resorts & Hotels remarks, “We have used this downtime productively and really examined where we can streamline our communication and improve our processes in relation to our travel trade partners. Its clear that we need to be nimble, expect constant change and take a speed-to-market approach with any changes. The answer of course lies in Digital, and using technology as much as possible, hence we are introducing 5 new tools and initiatives to take us into the future in a flexible and adaptable manner” JA CONNECT is an initiative from JA Resorts & Hotels designed to assist trade partners and corporate clients across the globe. It is the new connectivity and distribution platform available to all partners which allows partners to connect, shop and book all JA Resorts & Hotels online and in real-time, book both contracted and dynamic rate plans and have easy access to rich content such as high-resolution images and fact sheets for all room types and suites within the portfolio. The new platform reduces the time lag and potential errors of static rate loading ensuring instant access to rates, availability and offers without having to email or call the hotels directly, offering a seamless booking process and real-time confirmations for both bookings and cancellations JA CONNECT will also automate payments for credit and non-credit customers using both …

Hospitality Sales & Marketing International Middle East (HSMAI) is preparing for the future with training and events ready to further the skills of its hospitality professionals across the Middle East. HSMAI Middle East has prepared a comprehensive plan to focus on the future, with panel discussions, training workshops, surveys, and interviews on thought provoking topics. “We recognise that ‘life must go on’ and whilst we are holding ROC@Home with a focus on recovery, we also want to emphasise past trends that will return as an important part of our industry,” said Mona Faraj, Managing Director of HSMAI Middle East. ROC@Home, a full day experience taking place on Wednesday, June 17 will include live sessions from the Middle East, Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, and is designed to fuel industry recovery and revitalisation efforts. The exclusive toolkit offers an opportunity to engage with teams, as well as regional live expert sessions designed for hotel professionals to reset, refocus and reenergise. ‘Demystifying Distribution’ will kick off the 4-session series on Monday, June 29 and is suitable for both General Managers and Marketing Managers who should understand distribution in today’s world. A trend that is steadily growing is the Chinese traveller, with annual growth in the double digits across areas of the Middle East pre COVID-19. This trend is anticipated to recover, and what better time to start planning to attract this active market. How to tap into the China Market will start with the foundations and continue with digital platforms, ending with advance digital and marketing essence. This series of three sessions will start from Wednesday, July 22. “We have received a strong response to date from industry colleagues globally for ROC@Home, …

The second webinar in a tri-series by Spain Tourism -‘Discover Andalusia’ will take place tomorrow June 10, 2020 at 11am UAE time. This will be a great opportunity for all those in the travel trade to join in and learn more about the many facts about the destination that encompasses its rich history. As the destination has already announced their dates of entry to foreign tourism to Spain, the safe conditions will resume. When one cannot visit the destination due to the current lockdown, it is the best time to arm oneself with knowledge prior to visiting the destination and in this the tourism office of Spain has been tirelessly working to ensure engagement with their potential visitors as well as their regular visitors. According to Daniel Rosado Bayon – Director of the Spanish Tourism Office in Abu Dhabi, their efforts are to provide an opportunity to everyone interested in learning more about the varied destinations within Spain. It is a country that boasts of rich history and culture with many UNESCO sites as well. Andalusia on the other hand is a must visit destination to be added on to your bucket list as it has the best in terms of sights, food, shopping, art and culture, night life, beaches and the list runs on. It is one of the most diverse regions in the world that has so much of history embodied.

Etihad Airways has operated its first ever flight to Havana, Cuba. The goodwill flight, chartered by the Government of the United Arab Emirates, landed in the capital of the Caribbean island nation, carrying Cuban nationals returning home from the UAE. Havana is the latest addition to an expanding list of special charter flights to destinations not normally served on the airline’s global route network. Following the suspension of all normal passenger flights to and from the UAE on 24 March, Etihad has operated special humanitarian services to 32 cities around the world, all of which are not currently served by the airline’s passenger or cargo network of flights. These include Bogota, Bucharest, Grozny, Kiev, Larnaca, Podgorica, Tirana, Yerevan, Zagreb, Auckland, Bhubaneswar, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Dhaka, Erbil, Kabul, Lucknow, Makhachkala, Addis Ababa, Antananarivo, Bamako, Banjul, Conakry, Freetown, Harare, Kinshasa, Moroni, N’Djamena, Niamey, and Nouakchott. The airline recently operated a special humanitarian flight carrying essential medical and humanitarian cargo bound for the Palestinian Territories. Ahmed Al Qubaisi, Etihad Aviation Group Senior Vice President Government, International and Communications, said, “All of us at Etihad feel a collective sense of pride, and humility, in the knowledge that we have been able to fully mobilise our resources at a time of great difficulty and suffering, to provide essential aerial lifelines to those in need. We have been able to move with agility and fly to territories never served by us prior to the current global lockdown, so we can aid in the repatriation of people.” “Our services are a natural extension of the goodwill initiatives of the Government of the United Arab Emirates, and other governments and NGOs. As an international airline made up of a …

Joszef Varadi, CEO, Wizz Air confirmed his ambitions for the low-cost carrier’s impending move to operate and serve in the GCC markets, in an interview with aviation industry consultant John Strickland at ATM Virtual. Varadi said, “We managed to grow our fleet to 100 aircraft over the last 15 years in the EU and we should be able to do the same thing in Abu Dhabi.” Expanding on his forecast, he added, “You should be looking at our platform, not necessarily just Abu Dhabi, we want to serve the UAE and possibly the broader GCC markets.” Varadi went to talk about the current situation and the desire to travel, versus the ability to travel. He claimed that his customers were motivated to travel especially younger customers, who generally are more adventurous and less affected by the pandemic. However, the inconsistent response from different governments to the COVID-19 situation was not supporting the industry and that a framework of regulations was needed, to enable aviation to recover. “Airports did well after 9/11 introducing heightened security measures and we need similar measures regarding health and safety. While airports and airlines are quiet it is easier to practice social distancing, but not when we start to become busier.There is no scientific evidence to suggest any passengers have contracted the virus while flying. In fact, the air filtration onboard aircraft is comparable with an intensive care unit,” he said. “I do support wearing masks, hand sanitising, disinfecting and reducing the amount of high touch points such as cash payments for onboard catering and inflight magazines. It’s all about liquidity and what that provides to your business. If we do not fly a single passenger …

Abu Dhabi Airports will begin to welcome transfer passengers travelling through Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) from June 10, 2020. The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has approved Etihad’s commencement of a limited number of transfer flights connecting 20 destinations via Abu Dhabi International Airport. The resumption of these commercial flights marks the beginning of the resurgence of the UAE’s national aviation sector.The transfer flights will be allowed to land and depart from Abu Dhabi International Airport, enabling travellers to connect easily through the UAE capital onwards to key global destinations. H.E. Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Airports commented, “This milestone has been enabled by the effective and swift response of our nation’s wise leadership in implementing comprehensive measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. The UAE is recognised globally as a transfer hub of choice, enabling passengers from around the world to travel with convenience and ease. With this initial step, we begin the process of restarting commercial air travel, contributing to the region’s economic recovery following COVID-19.” “We have made extensive preparations to welcome back increasing amounts of passengers to our airports, and we have worked with our longstanding partner, Etihad Airways, to implement comprehensive health and safety measures across our facilities. The welfare of passengers and our employees remains our top priority, and we continue to work with the relevant aviation authorities in the UAE to ensure their safety whilst travelling through Abu Dhabi,” he said.

Emirates airline will offer passenger services to 16 more cities on its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from June 15, following the UAE Federal Government’s announcement to lift restrictions on transit passengers services. With travel restrictions remaining in place in most countries, customers are reminded to check entry and exit requirements before their journeys. Flights to the following cities will be available for booking on emirates.com or via travel agents: Bahrain, Manchester, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, New York JFK, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei, Hong Kong, Perth and Brisbane. In addition, from June 8 Emirates will offer flights from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for travellers from Pakistan who wish to connect onwards to other Emirates destinations. With this latest announcement, Emirates will be offering flights for passengers on the back of its scheduled cargo operations from Dubai to 29 cities, including existing flights to London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne and Manila (from 11th June). Customers can book to fly between destinations in the Asia Pacific and Europe or the Americas, with a convenient connection in Dubai, as long as they meet travel and immigration entry requirements of their destination country.Working closely with the UAE authorities, Emirates continues to take a measured and phased approach to flight resumption and rebuilding connections between Dubai and the world. Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step of the customer journey to ensure the safety of its customers and employees on the ground and in the air, including the distribution of complimentary hygiene kits containing masks, gloves, hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes to all customers.

Ajman Tourism Development Department (ATDD) highlighted the unique features of the Emirate of Ajman during the first-ever ATM Virtual, that took place from June 1-3 and provided a combination of networking, one-to-one meetings with buyers and extensive current insights from leading industry professionals. HE Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry, Director General, ATDD participated in a panel discussion on the initiatives to be taken to revive the travel and tourism industry to secure sustainable investment in the region. He emphasised on Ajman’s unique features as an attractive investment destination including its location in the UAE with quick access to all of the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai, cost-effectiveness and comparatively low set-up costs, faster decision-making process and less bureaucracy. He pointed out that the global travel and tourism sector is able to recover relatively fast as it did before in past crises and highlighted the importance of the industry quick adaptation to immediate changes, adopting latest technologies and less interactive operations. Al Geziry also stressed the importance of maintaining high precautionary measures to ensure a safe and comfortable trips for all travellers and hospitality workers, the importance of adopting standardised digital travel credentials and electronic id cards for fast adaptation to the post COVID-19 phase.

In the first dedicated survey around post COVID-19 travel for Saudi Arabia, Al Mosafer found Saudi national’s appetite for travel has remained resilient with 73% confident to go with restrictions partially lifted. In a boost to the domestic leisure travel market, 35% of Saudi’s are keen on discovering the growing cultural, adventure and entertainment offering in their home country, as they chose a staycation in the Kingdom as a preferred travel option post COVID-19. Muzzammil Ahussain, Executive Vice President at Almosafer said, “The interest in domestic leisure travel also provides a real opportunity to accelerate the development of tourism in the Kingdom and focus on the growing cultural, adventure and entertainment offerings waiting to be explored. We have already taken the initiative to invest into the creation of a holistic domestic offering for our flagship consumer brand Almosafer. This will include packages and travel options for all major destinations within the Kingdom, as well as those that are lesser known but full of exciting things to explore.” Fahad Alobailan, VP of Retail at Almosafer added, “As an omni-channel brand our focus is on providing Saudi travellers with the personalised advice and support they need at every touchpoint, to help them make informed travel decisions and feel confident wherever they are in the world. Travel advisory for us means keeping up to date with information and curating qualitative and quantitative content that will help our customers not only choose the destination for their next trip, but also give them an idea of what exactly to expect before they travel. Our customer support system offers valuable, in-depth information and guidance on safety regulations and restrictions in place from travel providers as well …