One of DTCM’s (Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing) key focus areas is to tap the Indian wedding, family and luxury segments. DTCM has already activated several joint marketing initiatives with leading travel and tour operators across India to further promote Dubai as a tourism destination.
“India continues to be a top source market for inbound visitors into Dubai with the total number of Indian guests reaching 463,175 for the first six months of 2013, a growth of 15.8 per cent over the corresponding period,” said Carl Vaz, Director ‐ DTCM (Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing) India.
As part of DTCM’s B2B contact engagement, DTCM has in place an online travel agents training program which enhances the trade’s product knowledge which in turn helps travelers a more qualitative experience. DTCM will also focus on niche segments such as student groups, senior citizens, sporting enthusiasts, heritage and culture enthusiasts, up-market leisure travelers and the lucrative wedding segment. Moreover, the tourism department aims to position Dubai as a foremost destination for both leisure and business travellers by continuously evolving their tourism offering.
Another country from the region is Oman aggressively working on India to attract Indian tourists and MICE by offering attractive packages. “The new convention centre coming up and the new airport, both expected to be ready by 2014, will make it even more attractive,” Lubaina Sheerazi, India Representative, Ministry of Tourism, Sultanate of Oman explained. In 2013- 14, Oman plans to target tier II cities such as Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. “The focus now is to tap tourists from non-metros, and tier II. Several offline/online training programs have been conducted with travel agents across different cities. We plan to relaunch our online training program in 2013 or early 2014.We will continue to work closely with the travel agents through various initiatives like joint promotions, advertising, roadshows, familiarisation trips, online and offline training programs, sales visits, and so on,” she added.
Similarly, Abu Dhabi is also going aggressive in India. According to the latest figures released by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi), India has emerged as the largest overseas source market for the emirate during the first six months of this year. Some 80,179 Indians stayed in Abu Dhabi’s hotels from January until the end of June, which is a 22 per cent rise compared to last year. Abu Dhabi recently conducted a five-city road show in 2013 which was extremely well received by the travel fraternity.
Bejan Dinshaw, Country Manager, India, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi ) informed, “Travel trade is an important and essential peg for promoting tourism in the Indian market scenario. We have another road show slated shortly for which we look forward to garner enthusiastic industry support as we have till date,” he said adding that TCA Abu Dhabi is looking at deploying a well thought out strategy to tap the huge potential of the Indian market. “Our task is extensively aided by the technologically advanced infrastructure and some of the world’s finest tourist attractions in Abu Dhabi.” TCA Abu Dhabi and TUI recently launched a month long campaign ‘Abu Dhabi Month’ which ran throughout August in the TUI flagship store in Delhi.
