The Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) is currently conducting its 3 city B2B roadshow in India. The objective is to update the Indian travel trade about DTCM’s latest initiative to further push the traffic from India. The roadhsow, held in Delhi on September 23 and in Mumbai on September 25, received tremendous response from the Indian travel and tourism fraternity. The roadhsow in Chennai will be organized September 26.
The 22 member Dubai delegation comprise of hotels, resorts, hotel apartments, attractions and destination management companies. The participants at the roadshow include Royal Arabian Tours, Bonton Tours and Travels, Discovery Travel and Tourism, Alpha Tours, Golden Sands Hotel Apartments, Dubai Marine Beach Resort & Spa, Sea View Hotel/ Royal Ascot Hotel, Al Rais Tours and Travels, Royal Gulf Tourism LLC, JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai, Jebel Ali Golf Resort & Spa, North Tours, Big Bus Tours, Bin Ali Tourism, ITL Tourism & Travel LLC, Admiral Plaza Hotel, Khalidia Hotel Apartments, The Oberoi, Dubai and Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Downtown.
Through this marketing initiative, DTCM along with its co-participants consisting of hotels, tourist attractions and destination management companies intend updating the trade with information on Dubai’s existing and new tourism product offerings. The multi-city workshops target over 1,000 Indian trade professionals comprising major travel and tour operators, wedding planners and up-market leisure operators across India. The delegation is accompanied by the Department’s officials: Mansoor Bawazir – Head of Region (India, Middle East & Southern/Eastern Africa) and Carl Vaz – Director, India Representative Office.
Commenting on the Roadshow, Vaz said, “There is always an extensive interest amongst the trade to update their knowledge and own experience of a destination. The roadshow thus provides us with a platform to interact with a significantly higher number of travel agents, tour operators and even wedding planners from various parts of India enabling them to cater to new segments and repeat visitors. The main market segments that we are looking at tapping in India this year are the group series departures and the family segment along with the niche segments of weddings / honeymoon, school groups, adventure / sport and luxury seekers and single women travellers who will be heading for the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) 2014.”
Announced earlier this year under the directive of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and spearheaded by DTCM, Dubai’s Tourism Vision for 2020 sets out how the city will double its annual visitor numbers from 10 million in 2012 to 20 million in 2020. More than 5.5 million tourists visited Dubai in the first half of 2013, representing an 11.1 per cent year-on-year increase across all key indicators, including hotel establishment guests, hotel and hotel apartment revenues, room occupancy and average length of stay, indicating that Dubai is on the way to achieving its Tourism Vision for 2020.
Helal Saeed Almarri – Director General, DTCM commented: “India consecutively ranks as the top source market globally for visitor traffic into Dubai. The total number of Indian guests for the first six months of 2013 stood at 463,175, representing a growth of 15.8% increase over the corresponding period last year. Similarly, in 2012 the total number of Indian visitors totaled 763,986 representing a 9% increase from 2011. Thus these numbers are extremely encouraging and indicate that we are on our way to achieving our Tourism Vision for 2020. Our B2B workshops play a vital role in facilitating the overall number of inbound travellers into Dubai.”
