Accor has partnered with UAE entertainment giant, Bulldozer Group, to unlock more exclusive and dynamic experiences for members of its newly launched lifestyle loyalty programme, ALL – Accor Live Limitless. The collaboration builds on Accor’s ambition to become a lifestyle enabler, with Bulldozer Group famed for its portfolio of original nightlife venues and award-winning restaurants, including Gaia, Scalini and Shanghai Me as well as state-of-the-art productions and cutting-edge events through BASE Dubai that are setting regional and global trends. Following the deal between the two leading lifestyle brands, ALL – Accor Live Limitless members will be offered privileges at most Bulldozer Group venues and restaurants, including BASE Dubai, an immersive open-air super club that regularly plays host to A-list celebrities. Backstage passes and meet-and-greets with artists are also up for grabs as part of partnership benefits. Diamond members will also be entitled to receive special benefits at Bulldozer Group restaurants with the choice of premium dining experiences including Shanghai Me, Scalini and Gaia. The exclusive privileges don’t end there; during the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which takes place every November, Accor will host an exclusive F1 party and other exciting hospitality events for ALL members. “As an operator of dynamic nightlife venues and restaurants with a distinctive atmosphere, the Bulldozer Group is the perfect fit for Accor and what it has set out to achieve with ALL – Accor Live Limitless,” said Yigit Sezgin, Chief Commercial Officer, Accor Middle East & Africa. Evgeny Kuzin, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Bulldozer Group, said, “A limitless lifestyle is an important part of our core culture, an ideology that we promote and facilitate for all of our clients, and one of …

Luxury five-star hotel C Central Resort The Palm marks the beginning of 2020 with a milestone event – its grand opening in Dubai. A 203-key luxury beachfront hotel with magnificent views of the Arabian Gulf, C Central Resort The Palm is strategically located in Dubai’s iconic man-made island, home to some of Dubai’s top luxury resorts – the Palm Jumeirah. “We are pleased to launch C Central Resort The Palm, a rare gem that sparkles in the sea, where guests can truly experience privacy and beachfront living, unwind and enjoy spectacular views of the ocean,” says Abdulla Al Abdulla, Chief Operating Officer of Central Hotels. “Our top clients are travellers and tourists from the CIS market, as well as guests from GCC & Middle East, Southeast Asia, Far East Asia, Europe and Latin America,” adds Basel Eshak Butrs, General Manager of C Central Resort The Palm. Featuring 192 spacious and well-equipped rooms, 11 stunning suites, four distinctly themed F&B outlets, a world-class spa & wellness centre, and a state-of-the-art gym, C Central Resort The Palm exemplifies a grand canvas of contemporary sophistication and luxurious tranquility. Both leisure and business travellers are in for something new & exciting. Within close proximity to prominent business districts, top attractions and the airports, the new hotel is the perfect address for modern travellers.

Etihad Airways has become the most recent airline to partner with UK’s easyJet, one of the world’s largest airlines. This new partnership means customers can purchase tickets through the easyJet worldwide website connecting the two airlines’ networks and opening new and exciting possibilities for travel between Europe, Africa, the Azores and the UAE. The collaboration comes into effect immediately. The partnership follows easyJet’s accelerated and successful roll out programme with world-leading flight comparison search engine, Dohop, which powers the easyJet worldwide website connecting its European network with long-haul flights. For Etihad, this has been achieved using the NDC (New Distribution Capability) platform providing technical capability for new partnerships previously not possible. The partnership with easyJet and Dohop is the UAE national airline’s first use of this technology and Etihad plans to add more airlines and travel partners to their NDC portfolio in 2020. Ali Saleh, Vice President Alliances and Partnerships, Etihad Airways, said, “This new collaboration between two great brands is a logical leap forward for both our companies. easyJet is a perfect launch partner for us in Europe, allowing us to reliably increase the breadth of our continental reach to and from Abu Dhabi, as we enhance ways of connecting directly with more airlines and travel partners around the world.”  Rachel Smith, Head of Commercial Partnerships, easyJet, said, “We’re excited to announce our partnership with Etihad Airways, which opens up Abu Dhabi as a destination to our passengers and more of Europe to Etihad. Through smart self-connections and strategic partnerships, we continue to extend the reach of the worldwide by easyJet network offering more value and more routes to more customers.”

Matka Nordic Travel Fair, which will be held at Messukeskus in Helsinki from January 15 to 19, 2020, has announced an ambitious goal — to be the world’s most responsible tourism event. “The actions taken by Messukeskus to save energy, increase the use of renewable energy, and reduce waste and increase recycling help us to work towards our goal of being the most responsible travel-industry event in the world. Our goal is to be 110 per cent carbon neutral in ten years. We already recycle 99 per cent of our waste, and in our catering, we will, in the future, continue to promote vegetarian food and leftover brunches. Already now, 85 per cent of the food we serve at fairs is locally sourced and made from Finnish ingredients. In Finland, we get to enjoy the world’s cleanest tap water, which is why we also encourage our international Matka Nordic Travel Fair visitors to bring their own water bottles to fill on site, instead of drinking bottled water. If necessary, you can also buy a bottle at the fair”, says Anna Suominen, Sales Group Manager at the Matka Nordic Travel Fair. For the first time, the Matka Nordic Travel Fair will feature the Sustainable Travel Competition for exhibitors. The competition jury will review the finalists to select the winner, who will receive a €3,000 prize, which is donated by the Finnish Fair Foundation.  

The Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) continues to work towards establishing a strong foothold in the Northern European tourism market. Efforts to draw in more visitors from the region will commence this year with its upcoming participation at the Matka Nordic Travel Fair in Helsinki, Finland. Set to take place from January 15 to 19, 2020, the latest edition marks the second consecutive year that SCTDA will be joining the premier global travel event. In 2020, the Authority will showcase Sharjah’s range of diverse tourism offerings – from world-class hotels to exciting adventures and other fun activities to special packages and promos – which are expected to appeal to the Northern European travellers. The five-day Matka Nordic Travel Fair is the largest travel and tourism exhibition in Northern Europe, an important source market for Sharjah’s tourism sector. More than 50,000 visitors and about 20,000 tourism and travel agencies attend the annual international gathering. H.E. Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman of SCTDA, said, “As the largest tourism and travel exhibition in Northern Europe, the Matka Nordic Travel Fair is a significant and strategic platform for us at SCTDA to showcase the emirate’s diverse range of tourism products for visitors and companies in the region. Our participation is part of our continuous efforts to raise Sharjah’s profile as a leading destination that attracts all kinds of tourists from all over the world.” Sharjah welcomed more than 578,000 European travellers in 2018, up 24 per cent from 468,034 tourists recorded in 2017. Joining the SCTDA delegates in the global event are the executives of the Sharjah International Airport Authority, Sharjah Expo, Environment and Protected Areas Authority, Sheraton Sharjah Beach Resort & …

Bespoke buys, avant-garde fashion, on-trend food trucks and handcrafted jewellery in an alfresco festival setting with the backdrop of the Burj Khalifa; Swyp Market Outside The Box (MOTB) is back and is taking interactive innovation to a whole new level.  Running from January 16 to February 1 in Burj Park, Downtown Dubai, as part of the milestone 25th edition of Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), Swyp MOTB offers a truly unique retail experience with immersive entertainment and world-class bespoke activations which with an extra week added to the dates, will be open to the public for 17 days, for the first time ever. The market is sponsored by Swyp, Liv. Digital Bank, National Foods Product Company Oasis and Lacnor, SanDisk and Emaar. New highlights for the seventh edition of Swyp MOTB include the Nike customization zone which will offer customers the opportunity to personalise their Nike T-shirts, jerseys and shoes bought at Swyp MOTB in a cool scaffolded LED lit space where Nike’s resident artists will be on hand to help create bespoke creations for shoppers’ kicks.  The Gaming Zone offers gamers the chance to play and compete in an open-air neon lit space with all the latest games across PS4 and Nintendo Switch to include Fortnite, Gran Turisno, Call of Duty, FIFA 2020 and Pokemon Go. The kids zone (back by popular demand), hosted by Splash and Party under the Saddle Shade will include inflatables, a zipline, craft workshops and new Swing Carousel ride to keep little ones entertained for hours.  One of the retail highlights this year is African Avenue, a double decker concept store featuring a collaboration of emerging and established African designers, which will also be complemented …

Glimpses into Air Traffic Control (ATC) modernisation and innovation will be provided to aviation industry stakeholders at the ATC Forum which is returning to Dubai for its third straight year in June 2020 during the record-setting Airport Show, the world’s largest annual airport industry gathering. The event is coming at a time when it has been predicted that more than half of the Top 20 biggest traffic flows will include Asia-Pacific, while four will come from the Middle East. Five of the 20 fastest growing traffic flows over the next two decades will also be in the MENA region. ATC Forum is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA), Chairman of Dubai Airports and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group. His Excellency Mohammed A. Ahli, Director General of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) and Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Air Navigation Services (dans), remarked, “ATC Forum will help regulators and the stakeholders understand the latest ATM developments and trends to make the aviation industry safe and secure.” Air Traffic Control is of tremendous importance in the Arabian Gulf region which is projected to have over 2.6 million flights per annum by 2030. The UAE will be handling about 1.85 million flights annually in 2030, when the average daily flights will reach 5,087. The ATC market is expected to grow globally to US$57 billion by 2022. Daniyal Qureshi, Group Exhibitions Director, Reed Exhibitions, said, “Though air traffic congestion has improved drastically across the region, a global study has projected the number of passengers delayed between one and two hours will grow from around 50,000 each …

Etihad Airways will mark Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2020 by operating a special ‘eco-flight’ from Abu Dhabi to Brussels, featuring a range of initiatives designed to illustrate the airline’s broad commitment to sustainable practices in the air and on the ground. Flight EY 57, departed at 2.20 am on January 13, operated with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, the newest and most efficient type in the Etihad fleet, which consumes at least 15 per cent less fuel than any aircraft type previously flown by the airline. The aircraft will follow an optimised flight route facilitated by the European airspace navigation service provider Eurocontrol to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions. A range of other initiatives will be undertaken before, during and after the flight to highlight incremental opportunities to reduce the airline’s impact on the environment. The aircraft will follow an optimised flight route facilitated by the European airspace navigation service provider Eurocontrol to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions. A range of other initiatives will be undertaken before, during and after the flight to highlight incremental opportunities to reduce the airline’s impact on the environment. Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said, “Sustainable practice is a critical and continuing challenge for the air transport industry, which is striving to reduce carbon emissions and waste, while meeting soaring demand for air travel. It is also a key priority for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, in which Etihad is a critical driver of both social and economic development. This year’s national theme of the United Arab Emirates is ‘2020: Towards the next 50’. Etihad is committed to working continuously with a range of partners as part of a …

Cebu Pacific (CEB), the Philippines’ largest national flag-carrier, hails the UAE’s five-year multiple-entry tourist visas for all nationalities, including Filipinos. This more relaxed visa policy makes it easier for the significant Filipino community in the UAE to bring their families and loved ones to the country more frequently. On the back of this development, CEB further boosts its commitment to make air travel accessible to everyone, particularly the significant Filipino community in Dubai with its trademark Crazy Seat Sale on January 15, 2020. More details on the sale will be rolled out soon on CEB’s official social media pages. Travel deal-hunters will be able to plan their holidays as well as take advantage of these exciting promotional offerings. CEB launched its first long-haul services with direct flights between Manila and Dubai in 2013, in the mission of serving the over one million Filipinos in Dubai. Its no-frills flying model has propelled it to become the preferred carrier of overseas Filipinos. Passengers looking for the best travel deals can stay updated by subscribing to the Cebu Pacific newsletter. Passengers can book seats on sale, and lowest year-round fares through www.cebupacificair.com or the mobile app, available both in Google Play and App Store. Those who prefer to pay in cash may pay over the counter at any branch of Al-Ansari Exchange, UAE Exchange and Al Rais Travels located across the country, within 24 hours of making a booking online.

Meraas has announced a partnership with Hilton that will see three hotels at Al Seef operate under Hilton brands. Hilton will operate the Hampton by Hilton Dubai Al Seef, Canopy by Hilton Dubai Al Seef and Al Seef Heritage Hotel Dubai, Curio Collection by Hilton. Originally opened in 2018, the three hotels are located at Al Seef, the bustling waterfront destination by Meraas that blends traditional Arabesque scenery with a contemporary vibe, along the shore of Dubai Creek. Mukesh Sodani, Deputy CEO of Meraas, said, “To be collaborating with three Hilton brands is a testament to the diversity of the hospitality portfolio we have developed and delivered over the past decade in Dubai. It’s another example of how we continue to enhance the hospitality sector in Dubai and contribute to achieving the Emirate’s Tourism Vision 2020.” Commenting on the opening of these hotels, Rudi Jagersbacher, President for Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Hilton, said, “We are delighted to be adding these three spectacular hotels to our portfolio here in Dubai. Reflecting the best of both old and new Dubai, they are perfectly suited to our brand portfolio and are great additions to our existing properties in the city.” Hampton by Hilton Dubai Al Seef offers contemporary hotel spaces featuring modern artwork in the lobby and public areas, a stylish restaurant featuring free hot breakfast and a bright aesthetic that provides a place to relax and recharge with comfortable spaces. The 200-room Canopy by Hilton Dubai Al Seef is located in the heart of old Dubai and is home to a Mediterranean restaurant and rooftop bar. The property will undergo minor changes to its public space in Q1 2020 to create …