Dubai Holding launched Hatta Dome Park, an exciting new glamping experience situated next to Hatta Wadi Hub, one of the UAE’s most popular eco-friendly adventure destinations. The resort has opened its doors to visitors.  This latest addition to Hatta’s glamping experience entails 15 dome-shaped, permanent luxury tents designed with panoramic windows offering majestic views of the Hatta mountain range. Hatta Dome Park is the perfect weekend getaway for families and groups of friends alike. The rooms come with the full range of amenities and are designed to accommodate two adults and two children. Each dome tent is equipped with its own private BBQ and fire pit within a large terrace space that allows for comfortable gathering. Located just a short walk from Hatta Wadi Hub, guests at HattaDome Park can enjoy an assortment of exciting activities, from mountain bike coaching and rentals to downhill mountain carting and trampoline jumping; as well as recently introduced activities by Dubai Holding, which include Zip Line, Climbing Wall, Slingshot, and Paragliding. In addition, guests can choose from a variety of F&B options to suit every taste, from the onsite coffee shop to the mixed-cuisine food trucks; and in turn, help support Hatta’s vibrant UAE National entrepreneur community. Joel Russo, Chief Hospitality Asset Management Officer at Dubai Holding commented, “Dubai Holding has been playing a key role in building Hatta’s tourism and investment potential, showcasing the beautiful mountain destination and its dynamic offering to the world. Hatta Dome Park is an excellent addition to Hatta Resorts, including Hatta Damani Lodges and Hatta SedrTrailers, and Wadi Hub, which have been running for three consecutive seasons since they first opened to the public in 2018, having welcomed …

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) hosted a virtual town hall meeting for industry stakeholders, providing an overview of the tourism sector and global travel updates and trends, as well as insights into source markets, initiatives, campaigns and events designed to highlight Dubai’s position as the destination of choice for families in the summer. The Summer 2021 Virtual Town Hall, presided by Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism), is part of the regular top-level industry engagements initiated by Dubai Tourism to ensure the entire industry is seamlessly aligned with the marketing communications and campaigns dedicated to tourism growth. The meeting, attended by over 600 key executives from the hospitality, travel and attractions sectors, reviewed the progress made by the industry since the reopening of the city to domestic tourism in May 2020 and international tourists in July 2020. It also reviewed the strong measures in place to safeguard the health and well-being of residents and visitors. During the meeting, it was noted that the wide ranging steps taken by Dubai to successfully manage the pandemic resulted in the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) awarding the emirate the ‘Safe Travels’ stamp. Dubai also launched its own compliance programme, the DUBAI ASSURED stamp to certify and recognise establishments across the tourism ecosystem that have complied with all safety protocols. An ongoing countrywide vaccination campaign has also placed the UAE among the top five nations globally in terms of overall vaccine rollout. The Town Hall provided an insight into Dubai Tourism’s direction and plans for Summer 2021, to enable stakeholders to leverage and benefit from the various marketing initiatives and ensure the …

His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism, co-hosted a virtual meeting of the UNWTO Global Tourism Crisis Committee with the organization’s Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The meeting’s participants, which include UNWTO Member States and representatives from global industry organizations, discussed the importance of multilateral cooperation and tangible action to facilitate the safe and seamless resumption of international travel. These efforts will support the sector’s recovery by building confidence among travelers and tourism businesses. His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb asserted the Kingdom’s leadership in coordinating and shaping recovery strategies: “As the global community continues to navigate the effects of the pandemic, we must find new and innovative solutions to bring our countries into the new normal, while paving the way to recovery, and ensuring that no country is left behind. This should be based on collective, coordinated and tangible action to ensure that as we build back, we emerge stronger and more resilient.”

The UAE tourism sector performed outstandingly in 2020 despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed by the Ministry of Economy, noting that the sector was among the least affected and fastest to recover around the world. The UAE recorded a 54.7% hotel occupancy rate in 2020 – the second highest in the world behind only China – while the global rate dropped to 37% under the weight of the pandemic, and hotels in the Middle East region recorded just 43% occupancy. This is in parallel to the significant decline in tourist activity, which fell by 74% around the world and 76% in the region. “The global tourism industry bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic,” noted H.E. Al Falasi. “Guided by the directives of its wise leadership, the UAE was able to quickly contain the outbreak’s impact on the local tourism sector, relying on innovation and agility in its efforts to provide incentives, launch initiatives, and create opportunities to accelerate the recovery of the tourism sector and boost its contribution to GDP.” “Despite the tremendous challenges it brought onto the industry, the pandemic also created new opportunities for domestic tourism, with a surge in demand recorded over the past year, especially during the holidays and vacation season, and some establishments even reporting full occupancy. This reflects the high quality of the services the sector provides, which rank among the best in the world,” H.E. explained. “Strengthening domestic tourism is essential for ensuring the tourism sector’s full recovery and driving faster economic recuperation. The UAE can benefit from its advanced infrastructure, modern facilities, and wide range of services and activities to promote itself as a tourist destination with a lot …

The latest study, commissioned by Amadeus and delivered by Censuswide, provides encouraging news for the industry, with 51% of travellers from the UAE keen to book international travel within six weeks of restrictions lifting. The study also demonstrates the importance of understanding traveller concerns around privacy, ease of use and security. As governments and the travel industry explore the benefits of digital health passports, the message from travellers is clear: digital health passports can be a vital tool in opening up travel. An Amadeus commissioned study has found that that just over 9 in 10 (91%) travellers surveyed globally would be comfortable using a digital health passport for future trips. This encouraging research provides an incentive to accelerate plans for digital health passports that will help to address traveller concerns. The study provided further good news for the industry as just over half of UAE travellers (51%) said they would book international travel within six weeks of restrictions lifting, demonstrating that the appetite to travel remains high. The survey of 9,055 travellers in France, Spain, Germany, India, UAE, Russia, Singapore, UK and US also contained a note of caution for the industry with over 9 in 10 (93%) travellers having some concerns around storing their health data for travel. The survey also explored what solutions might alleviate concerns around digital health data and travel in the future and results showed: Almost 3 in 5 (58%) of UAE travellers would be comfortable using a digital passport if it was accepted by most countries and was regulated by international standards, while 47% would be comfortable if only COVID-19-specific data was included in any health passport.  Just under 8 in 10 (78%) would …

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi announced its first flight to Tel Aviv on April 18, 2021, following the announcement that Israel has been added to the green list (a list of ‘green’ countries, regions and territories that you can travel from if planning a trip to Abu Dhabi), meaning travellers will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival in Abu Dhabi. Tickets are already on sale on wizzair.com and the airline’s mobile app, which is also available in Arabic, with fares starting as low as AED 99*. The flights from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv will be available three times per week in April, moving to daily flights in May. Kees Van Schaick, Managing Director of Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, said, “In light of the recently eased restrictions, I’m delighted to announce the date of the first WIZZ flight from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv later this month. The connection between the two cities is a historic moment – the link between the UAE and Israel will further contribute to the tourism sector and help to diversify the local economy, while bringing new low-fare business and leisure opportunities for travellers.”  

Dubai College of Tourism (DCT) has announced a strategic partnership with Chalhoub Group. This partnership comes as part of DCT’s Medyaf programme, the industry nationalisation initiative aimed at preparing talented young UAE nationals for careers across tourism touchpoints including the retail sector. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Essa Bin Hadher, General Manager of DCT and Wassim Eid, President People & Culture at Chalhoub Group . The MOU will pave the way for the development and career support of DCT students and UAE nationals in various roles in the retail sector. Essa Bin Hadher, General Manager of Dubai College of Tourism, commented, “Our partnership with Chalhoub Group will provide a major boost to our Medyaf programme to create more opportunities for talented Emiratis to work in the retail sector. The continuing collaboration with the private sector in Dubai comes within the framework of strategic measures being undertaken to meet a key goal of Dubai’s tourism strategy to make the city the world’s No.1 most visited, revisited and preferred destination.  During these challenging times, there is even greater urgency to expand the pool of local talent by working with industry partners like the Chalhoub Group to achieve the goals of our industry nationalisation drive, a critical element in strengthening the city’s tourist-facing workforce and adding to the sustainability and growth of our industry.” Commenting on the agreement, Wassim Eid, President People & Culture, Chalhoub Group, said, “We are proud to partner with the Dubai College of Tourism to support a new generation workforce and attract UAE nationals to join the luxury retail sector. DCT is giving young talents a great opportunity by introducing them to the private sector and …

Travelport launched its next-generation platform, Travelport+. It is the centerpiece of Travelport’s new global strategy and is designed to accelerate industry innovation in multi-source content distribution, travel retailing and value generation.  Travelport+ is an extensive, next-generation platform that creates a simplified, capability-rich, marketplace for travel retailing. As travel distribution has evolved, retrofitting new types of distribution into existing platforms has led to increased complexity across the industry, slowing progress. Travelport+ is a true multi-source platform offering more dynamic, differentiated, retail-ready content, delivering better choices for retailers and consumers, in a faster, frictionless way. “It’s a monumental moment in our history and in the development of our industry”, said Greg Webb, Chief Executive Officer at Travelport. “Travel hasn’t kept up with the evolution of modern digital retail and today, the buying and selling of travel is more complex than it needs to be. As Travelport is the only dedicated, global, travel distribution platform, we have made a multi-year investment to accelerate industry innovation in travel retailing. Bringing together the best of Travelport’s existing capabilities and tools and driving innovation to deliver the unmet needs of our industry, Travelport+ truly changes the game in the speed of delivery of modern travel retail and offers a fundamental upgrade to travel technology.”

The final in the tri-series of the Re-discover Spain campaign to feature some of the most interesting areas in the destination was held with over 180 agents from the Middle East attending the sessions. Starting off the webinar was Daniel Rosado Bayon – Director-Spain Tourism GCC & Iran, “Our main focus is to facilitate the travel trade to obtain relevant information about the destination. As a year-round destination, Spain has endless possibilities from beautiful beach resorts and experiences to ski resorts. Whatever you need you can email us or ask us for more information over our website as well.  Thank you for attending the webinars and we hope that you learnt a lot about the different areas in our destination. At present, there are still restrictions and precautions undertaken by the authorities and we are awaiting the decision by the EU to open borders, we hope that by end of spring or beginning of summer. By August 2021, 70% of the population in Spain will be vaccinated. Connectivity-wise, we have flights from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Doha to Madrid and Barcelona, but currently awaiting the opening of borders.” Laura Marichal Báez​-Tourist Promotion Coordinator – Tenerife Select – “Tenerife Select, is a tourist brand that brings together the most exclusive offers in the island. It is a luxurious experience for all your clients with local companies contributing immensely. Our climate which is 23C year-round with sun until 9 pm (in summer) is unique and most popular. There are 10 main reasons to select Tenerife; well -connected with over 70 airlines operating pre-covid time. All year around good climate, quality, and excellence with luxurious and personalized holidays tailor-made exclusively. Unique accommodation …

IHG Hotels & Resorts has appointed Haitham Mattar as managing director of India, Middle East & Africa (IMEA), replacing the outgoing Pascal Gauvin who left the post at the end of 2020. Mattar will take up the position from April 18.With more than 25 years of experience, he will be responsible for driving IHG’s business in the Middle East, Africa and the South West Asia region, covering both development and operations responsibilities across a portfolio of 165 operational hotels and a pipeline of over 100 properties. Mattar joins IHG from the Saudi Ministry of Tourism where, as senior advisor and a member of the Executive Leadership Committee, he contributed to the development and implementation of Saudi’s sustainable tourism strategy to become one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Previously, he spent four years as CEO of Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority, reporting to HH Sheikh Saud Bin SaqrAl Qassimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of RasAl Khaimah. It is not the first time Mattar has worked at IHG, having previously spent 11 years at the group from 2000 to 2011 in various operations, commercial and sales and marketing positions based in the region. In his new role, he will be based in IHG’s Dubai office and will report to Kenneth Macpherson, chief executive officer, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa (EMEAA). Macpherson said, “I am very pleased to welcome Haitham back to IHG and lead our business in IMEA at such a crucial time for the travel and tourism industry. Haitham has a wealth of experience within the sector and has been at the forefront of several important strategic initiatives in the region over the last decade. …