Category Archives: Agents

Seabourn Encore, the ultra-luxury cruise ship, visited  Dubai Harbour, the city’s extraordinary seafront district designed for a maritime lifestyle. Discover the World, the Middle East representative for Seabourn, hosted guests for a ship tour event onboard Seabourn Encore. The stunning Seabourn Encore entered service in January 2017, once again re-defining the industry’s expectations for an ultra-luxury experience. Designed by hospitality design icon Adam D. Tihany who intended Seabourn Encore “to feel more like a luxury yacht,” the vessel, together with her sister ship Seabourn Ovation (2018) features modern design elements and innovations in keeping with Seabourn’s reputation for understated elegance, as well as one additional deck and expanded public areas. Seabourn Encore offers 300 spacious and luxuriously-appointed all-veranda suites and maintains the line’s high ratio of space per guest, enabling highly personalized service. Features include seven lounges and bars, The Spa at Seabourn featuring a variety of wellness and spa treatments, and The Retreat, a sanctuary designed for guests to relax in private cabanas, with a Spa Treatment Cabana for personalised spa services. In addition, guests may enjoy superb cuisine at seven dining venues, including The Grill by Thomas Keller, Earth & Ocean on The Patio, and Sushi. Seabourn Encore will spend summer 2023 in the Mediterranean, with a series of voyages to Greece & Turkey itineraries. The itineraries explore the wonders of the classical world, and select voyages include Seabourn’s iconic ‘Evening at Ephesus,’ a complimentary private event with a classical concert at the ancient site of Ephesus. In November 2023, Seabourn Encore ends its Europe season with an 18-night Holy Land, Egypt & Arabia voyage travelling from Athens to Dubai. From there, the ship heads to Asia, where …

Sabre Corporation and Al Manal Travel, Tours and Cargo, Salalah, the Sultanate of Oman, have announced an exclusive multiyear technology agreement to help the agency advance its operations and provide travellers with personalized travel experiences. Al Manal Travel has been working with Sabre for more than two decades, delivering comprehensive travel solutions and offerings – including travel packages, cruises and adventurous holidays. Al Manal Travel will be exclusively using Sabre Red 360 to deliver highly personalised offers for its customers, by deploying intelligent and consultative services and features. Furthermore, it will benefit from Sabre’s Automated Exchanges and refunds to drive operational efficiency. “For more than 20 years, Sabre has been the trusted and innovative technology partner that helped us deliver comprehensive travel services and customized products in the Omani market,” said Ahmad Mustafa, General Manager, Al Manal Travel, Tours and Cargo. “We choose Sabre for its expertise, dedicated team, and innovative technology, which will help us to keep our business agile and advance the services that we offer our travellers.” Al Manal Travel will continue to have access to Sabre’s marketplace of more than 400 airlines, 750,000 hotel properties, and hundreds of tour operators, rail, car and cruise providers, to sell customized travel packages from suppliers around the world. “We are thrilled to extend our longstanding relationship with Al Manal Travel as its preferred GDS partner,” said John Matthew, Oman Country Manager, Sabre Travel Network Middle East. “We are constantly evolving our technology, enabling us to offer agencies faster innovation and more flexible solutions infused with data-driven insights. This helps agencies to differentiate their offerings and create compelling travel shopping experiences.”

Saudi Tourism Authority (STA) has successfully concluded its first roadshow in China with 13 partners including DMCs, hoteliers and airline partners in attendance. The roadshow showcased the country’s rich cultural and heritage offerings and why Saudi is the perfect travel destination for Chinese travelers. A series of events, meetings, round table discussions and networking events were hosted, resulting in over twenty strategic partnership announcements. During the multicity roadshow, Saudi Tourism Authority held meetings with over 300 trade partners and travel buyers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to promote Saudi as a leisure destination, sharing insights into the emerging trends in MICE tourism. Saudi’s inclusion in the ‘Approved Destination Scheme’, alongside China’s inclusion in Saudi’s e-visa program and 96-hour Stopover Visa – where guests flying onwards on SAUDIA can avail a complimentary one-night hotel stay in Saudi – facilitates seamless group travel. Saudi’s presence in China is an indication of how important the Chinese market is for the Kingdom and its commitment to China as a key source market for Saudi. Saudi has witnessed incredible growth since opening to tourism in 2019 as its post-pandemic tourism recovery outpaced G20 countries with a 121% YoY growth according to UNWTO. As part of Saudi’s ambition to achieve 100 million visits annually by 2030, China represents immense potential as it is expected to be Saudi’s 3rd top source market by then. Fahd Hamidaddin, CEO and Member of the Board at Saudi Tourism Authority said, “Our first roadshow in China has been a tremendous success and a testament to Saudi’s potential to become the region’s tourism hub and a gateway to the cultural and natural riches of Arabia for Chinese travelers. Supporting us in realising …

Travelport announced the launch of Smartpoint Cloud on Travelport+. As the only modern retailing platform built for agencies, Travelport+ will now deliver a more intuitive and efficient way for travel agents to sell and service travel, all while increasing sales of higher-value services for suppliers. Through Smartpoint Cloud, agents will be able to easily search, filter, find and create tailored packages to suit every customer type, including fully customizable hotel and flight search options and NDC offers. “Travel agents are the true retailers of our industry, and launching Smartpoint Cloud on Travelport+ will help our partners to deliver more value to both their clients and suppliers,” said Tom Kershaw, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Travelport. “Like any good tech innovation, these tools are simple to use and tackle key challenges faced by the travel advisor community. Smartpoint Cloud will further personalize agent workflows, help drive more revenue, and most importantly, impress customers.” Built with the insight that agencies need to train and onboard new agents, the graphical user interface (GUI) on Travelport+ is designed to provide a more user-friendly, simpler experience that speeds up agent workflow. Agents who prefer to work in a traditional (cryptic) interface have the flexibility to do so. Smartpoint Cloud’s retailing storefront helps agents understand offers and make more informed decisions within the robust offerings of air, hotel, car, and rail content available. It provides better criteria to allow easy comparisons from any source, including both NDC and traditional air content side by side. Smartpoint Cloud also helps provide more transparency on offers, enabling agents to have the relevant information for comparison shopping at their fingertips. Additionally, the newly expanded Trip Quote capabilities integrate both …

Ibrahim Nalkhande is the newly appointed General Manager at Business Travel LLC, a leading Dubai based Travel Management Company. Nalkhande, described as a man of wisdom, insight and understanding, said he is very excited about the upcoming challenges and opportunities. Having established reputation in the travel industry and got experience from some of the renowned brands of the industry, Nalkhande said he had a clear mandate to take Business Travel to the next summit. The fiscal year 2023 started with a very positive note special mention to first two months recorded performance, the momentum will gain further pace , and I am optimistic that we will exceed the pre-pandemic numbers in this year stated Nalkhande. I am very excited with the new role and challenges that lie ahead for m in my new assignment. I will use the diversified experience and expertise of Travel Industry for the betterment, growth and profitable business development of Business Travel LLC said Nalkhande who shares the vision of Rashid Al Noori, the Chairman and stalwart of the industry, the visionary of ‘Business Travel LLC ‘an expanding conglomerate that saw its beginning in Dubai in 2006.

Almatar Travel Group and Sabre Corporation signed a new technology agreement at the Saudi Tourism Forum in Riyadh, that will see the travel company uses Sabre’s industry-leading technology and solutions to help drive operational efficiency, advance its virtual payments strategy and transform travellers experience. Under this agreement, Almatar Travel Group will benefit from Sabre’s extensive travel ecosystem including its wide geographic scope and breadth of travel content, which includes air, lodging, ancillary and NDC content. Furthermore, Almatar will access Sabre’s portfolio of innovative technology and intelligent platform, Sabre Red 360, which will help enable the travel company to differentiate its offering, compete more effectively, grow faster in the region, and expand its online travel business. Additionally, Almatar will use Sabre’s APIs and Automation Hub to help it stay competitive in the dynamic Saudi marketplace. “With the impressive developments of the Saudi Vision 2030, we are witnessing increased tourism in the country, allowing us to deal with travellers from around the world with different expectations and accustomed to different technology,” said Faisal Al Rajhi, President, Almatar Travel Group. “We turned to Sabre to advance our technology, expand our reach and equip ourselves with intelligent solutions that make shopping and booking travel intuitive, personalised and flexible which is important to differentiate our offerings in a competitive marketplace.” Almatar Travel Group is advancing its payments solution and will deploy Sabre Virtual Payments (SVP) to help maximize value of its B2B payments and to provide payments flexibility and control, increased fraud protection and security, accurate reconciliation and better automation and efficiency. “We are excited to partner with Sabre at this exciting time to support the Kingdom’s vision and the travel and tourism developments,” said …

Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism joined forces to partner with the highly acclaimed Destination Wedding Planners (DWP) Congress 2023, an exclusive event that brought the largest Business-to-Business platform for weddings to Doha. This collaboration underscores the city’s growing stature as a key figure in the MICE industry, which continues to attract business travellers from around the world. The 9th edition of DWP congress was held from 14-16 March, to bring together leading wedding planner professionals who provided fresh perspectives on the industry through a series of keynote speeches and DWP masterclasses. Chairman of Qatar Tourism and Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker opened the congress with a speech to spotlight Qatar’s offerings as a versatile and captivating wedding destination. Chairman of Qatar Tourism and Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said: “Our continuous effort to promote Qatar as a leading destination that caters to the needs of all travellers has been further strengthened by the recent hosting of the Destination Wedding Planners Congress 2023. This event is regarded as the most prestigious B2B gathering in the multi-billion-dollar wedding industry, and we are honoured to have had the best wedding planners and designers in Doha. We eagerly anticipate welcoming them back following an inspiring visit this year, and look forward to seeing their vision for luxurious and elaborate weddings.” The DWP congress has grown rapidly since its inception in 2014, which took place in Greece, and has successfully made its mark in desirable destinations across the globe from Florence, Phuket, Los Cabos, Dubai and Bali. This year the congress highlighted Doha, a city that has undergone remarkable developments in hospitality, aviation, …

Mastercard and Bahrain-based fintech Infinios Financial Services have announced a strategic partnership to advance the digitization of business-to-business travel payments between travel buyers and suppliers through the first Mastercard Wholesale Program launch in region. The collaboration will enhance liquidity for travel suppliers, such as travel agencies, through greater transaction flexibility, transparency, and security. Infinios will deploy the Mastercard Wholesale Program, a virtual card based B2B payment product, to its travel industry customers using its proprietary technologies to help them secure, streamline, and automate B2B travel transactions. The combined solution has been specifically designed for and with the travel industry, addressing the lack of visibility, control, and protection associated with manual payment methods that are still rife across the sector. Andrew Sims, co-founder and CEO of Infinios Financial Services, said: “We are excited to be continuing to develop our relationship with Mastercard in the B2B travel payments space in line with our commitment to support the overall financial ecosystem in the region. The combined strength of Infinios’s comprehensive technology capabilities and the pricing structures available through the Mastercard Wholesale Program will enable us to provide a further boost to the corporate travel industry as it continues to recover from the ill effects of the global pandemic.” Khalid Elgibali, Division President, Middle East and North Africa, Mastercard, said: “As consumers regain the confidence to seek out and book travel experiences, legacy B2B payment processes threaten to hold the industry back. It is now vital that organizations across the sector consider how their payment strategy can secure growth and improve liquidity. Innovation must play its part in ensuring that travel payments are not only simple and convenient but, even more importantly, flexible and …

Travelport announced the acquisition of Deem, a leading corporate travel management platform. Since launching the company’s next-generation marketplace, Travelport+, Travelport has continued its investment in innovation, with the acquisition of Deem being the latest example. “The game-changing acquisition of Deem by Travelport will fulfill a growing, post-pandemic need for a tight, fully-integrated corporate tool that will provide access to all multi-source content, including NDC,” said Greg Webb, CEO of Travelport. “We’ve been laser-focused on investing in technology innovation, and Travelport+ has simplified the agency workflow, upgraded how travel content is curated, and enabled modern travel retailing. Now with the acquisition of Deem, Travelport will provide corporate travel with award-winning, complementary tools that are as revolutionary, modern, and easy-to-use as Travelport+.” Previously owned by Enterprise Holdings, a leading provider of mobility solutions, Deem has long been recognized as the foremost modern technology for the corporate travel industry. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2022, Deem has pioneered its suite of online booking and travel technology products for business travelers, travel managers, travel-management companies and suppliers, making the corporate travel experience more efficient for all. Deem has continued to grow its share of the corporate travel business, and Travelport’s investment intends to further accelerate that growth on a global scale. “Deem is pleased to be joining the Travelport family,” said David Grace, President of Deem. “We are proud of the growth and success Deem has achieved in recent years. The acquisition by Travelport will enable a strong future of global growth for Deem and help accelerate the delivery of travel management solutions in a rapidly evolving industry. We want to express our sincere appreciation to our customers, as well …

Turespaña in partnership with Emirates Holidays conducted a B2B activation at the newly launched Emirates World store at the Town Centre Mall ,Jumeirah. This is first of a kind activity at the store and had around 25 select HNWI clients of Emirates Holidays to whom Daniel Rosado – Director , Spain Tourism presented the many offerings from Spain to the Emirati clients in particular . The event started off with the guests  experiencing zero alcohol grape beverages from Bodegas Torres- a renowned Spanish winery that has been quite popular with Middle Eastern clients followed by some light entertainment for the guests who won various prizes like Spanish goodie bags and gift hampers.” Speaking with Tourism breaking news Daniel Rosado, Director Spain Tourism GCC, reiterated, “ It’s always great to interact with direct customers and understand their viewpoints and expectations about Spain as a destination . It was a good turn out and we were very happy to learn that most of the customers have been to Spain at least once and have Spain on their mind for the upcoming holidays “ Namratha Rose, Marketing Manager Spain tourism shared, “ We have been trying to conduct different kinds of activities to promote Spain and this collaboration with emirates holidays is definitely a good one as this is the first time we had an in store activity and it was good to see everybody experience a bit of Spain and enjoy their time at the store . We will be having more of these activities for our B2C clients in the coming months as well  “