Sajjad Ahmad, Deputy Business Editor

Arabian Travel Market 2023 has attracted a massive response during the last four days. The final day of the exhibition saw various agreement signing between different participating bodies.

Global and regional organisations strengthened their business connections by entering new partnerships to drive the growth of world’s tourism and hospitality sectors.

Emirates has signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on the final day of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) with the aim of boosting tourism in Bahrain and Zambia.

The airline will support Bahrain’s new four-year strategy for tourism, which aims to attract 14.1 million tourists by 2026. Emirates currently operates 21 weekly flights to Bahrain on its Boeing 777, offering travellers convenient schedules via Dubai.

Emirates and the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority will explore opportunities to expand the Kingdom’s appeal in key markets such as Japan, Korea, Spain, Hungary, and Poland, as well as increase awareness of it as a short weekend getaway for tourists from Israel and the UAE.

The MoU was signed by Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer, and Fatima Bint Jaffer Al Sairafi, Minister of Tourism and Chairman of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority.

Emirates and Zambia Tourism will jointly explore opportunities to boost visitor arrivals to Zambia by leveraging Emirates’ global network of 140 destinations.

Through the partnership, both parties will collaborate on key initiatives to promote experiences in Zambia and increase the destination’s visibility within the Emirates network. Advertising and marketing campaigns will also be considered to drive inbound visitors to Zambia.

The MoU was signed by Badr Abbas, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations for Africa, and Matongo Matamwandi, Chief Executive Officer of Zambia Tourism Authority (ZTA).

Emirates launched operations to Zambia in 2012 and now operates a daily service with seven flights a week.

HMH signs agreements: During its participation in the Arabian Travel Market-2023, Hospitality Management Holding Group (HMH) signed management agreements to manage 5 new hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, targeting its expansion of hotel portfolio in the region. The agreement includes managing 4 hotels - Coral Makkah Hotel, Corp Al Madinah Hotel, Corp Yathrib Hotel, Corp Yanbu Hotel, and Corp Makkah Hotel. The Group’s hotel portfolio in the MENA region will be expanded from 13 to 18 hotels, across different categories.

Corp Yanbu Hotel is a beautiful property located in the western port city of Yanbu, overlooking the Red Sea. The hotel offers 56 spacious guest rooms and hotel apartments, equipped with state-of-the-art amenities and cutting-edge designs.

Coral Makkah Hotel is a prestigious tower hotel located in the Islamic city of Makkah. Boasting 230 tastefully appointed keys, the hotel is situated in the Al Naseem suburb, offering guests unparalleled access to the city’s most iconic landmarks and attractions. As a premium 4-star hotel, Coral Makkah Hotel prides itself on providing guests and pilgrims with a host of modern amenities and conveniences designed to enhance their overall experience. These include a spacious ballroom, multiple dining options featuring a variety of international cuisine, a state-of-the-art gym, a luxurious beauty salon, and a Spa and Hamam therapy center, ensuring guests can unwind and rejuvenate in style. Corp Al Madinah Hotel is in the holy city of Madinah, just 350 meters from Al Masjid an Nabawi Al Haram. This 150-key family-friendly hotel offers guests an extensive range of premium amenities, including well-appointed guest rooms equipped with state-of-the-art air conditioning, a fully stocked minibar, a comfortable seating area, and complimentary Wi-Fi access.

Corp Yathrib Hotel a 340 keys hotel is conveniently set in Al Madinah, offering air-conditioned rooms with private parking and room service. The hotel is around 3.5 km from Quba Mosque, 6.9 km from Qiblatain Mosque, and just 600 meters from Al-Masjid an-Nabawi.

Corp Makkah Hotel is in the holiest Islamic city in the world, Makkah. The tower hotel has 230 keys and is situated in the Al Naseem suburb. The hotel’s amenities include a spacious ballroom, restaurants, a well-equipped gym, a beauty salon, and a Spa and Hamam therapy center.

HMH’s COO, Patrick Antaki, said that the group’s strategic partnership in the Saudi market is currently witnessing solid performance rates across all economic sectors. He emphasized the group’s strategy of expanding its hotel portfolio in the region’s markets, primarily targeting the Saudi market due to the robust growth of its hospitality sector. The Saudi Arabian tourism sector aims to raise the Kingdom’s annual tourist numbers to 100 million visitors by 2030, contributing to an increase of 10% in the country’s GDP.

UAE hospitality sector growing: The Hospitality sector in the UAE is growing and the ongoing Arabian Travel Market 2023 exhibition will accelerate the growth as global travel and tourism bodies are showing their offerings at the event.

“We have registered a huge growth in first quarter of 2023 compare to the same period last year as our occupancy rate increased due to massive tourist inflow to the UAE in the recent past, said Khalid Saeed, Hotel Manager at Habtoor Grand Resort Autograph Collection.

He adde, “Our main focus during our participation at the event to announce our summer staycation promotion. This year, we are bringing special offerings for families at our resort during the summer.”  Saeed said that our most of the guests are from the UK, Russia and GCC. Despite Russia-Ukraine situation we are still able to attract more guests from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).”

“GCC is very important market for us and our market share has seen a tremendous growth in the recent past. Our facility has received a record number of guests during the Eid Al Fitr holidays,” he said.

“We see an excellent outlook for the summer season and at the moment we are going ahead by 5% growth compare to the last year. Currently we don’t have any expansion plans but we are going to further improve our F&B sector,” he added.

“The 30th edition of ATM focuses on sustainable growth and we as a group are giving immense importance to make efforts to support UAE’s net zero efforts. We have introduced a programme to reduce food wastage at our facility. We are also making efforts to save energy through various initiatives,” he concluded.

Slim Zaiane, General Manager at Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates said, “The UAE is one of the main travel and tourism destinations in the world. The country has attracted record tourists inflow recently, which has benefited the local hospitality sector.”

He said, “The Arabian Travel Market 2023 exhibition is a right platform for the tourism and hospitality sectors to develop new connections and partnership and explore new avenues of growth. We are showcasing our products and holding various meeting during the event.”

 About the hotel growth, Zaiane said,“ I think we have started this year very well and witnessed a huge growth in our revenue and occupancy in the first quarter of the year.”

 He added,“ Due to our diversification strategy to source new markets, our facility performed extremely good. We see big growth in the summer as Chinese tourists are back after a long gap due to Covid-19 restrictions and visitors numbers of Russian tourists are increasing day-by-day.”

He explained,” Kempinski has registered around 12 per cent growth in Q1 of 2023 compared to the same period last year. Emirates is playing a big role in the growth of the UAE tourism sector as the airline has increased its flights and destinations.”

Zaiane concluded, “Sustainability is the main focus of our group and the facility is making every possible effort to reduce the carbon footprint. We are adopting more green practices by choosing our partners and supplier and focusing on environment-friendly products and solutions. We are diversifying our F&B section to support the UAE’s net-zero agenda.”


A panel discussion during the ITIC Middle East Tourism Investment Session.

Sustainability and investment: The ITIC Middle East Tourism Investment Session has presented their annual ATM Investment Summit meeting at ATM 2023. Exploring the economic outlook for regional tourism, the session also delved into the relationship between sustainability and investment in the sector as well as the growing opportunities for women in the Middle East, focusing on Oman as a case study.

Hosted by Gerald Lawless, Director ITIC Ltd, Invest Tourism Ltd and Ambassador WTTC, the summit opened with Nicolas Mayer, Global Tourism Leader PWC and Nicholas Maclean, Chairman and Managing Director CBRE Middle East. Sharing an optimistic view on the market Maclean said: “One of the key asset classes which is attracting special interest, particularly in the GCC is the opportunity for investors to capitalise on the hospitality industry. The profile of investors in the GCC is much more long term than in other markets around the world.”

Saudi Arabia is a particular growth area for the GCC region with the Kingdom recording 93.5 million tourists in 2022. Commenting on the investment situation in Saudi, Mayer said: “In Saudi Arabia there is an acceleration of not just hotels and rooms, but the creation of entire destinations which entails a number of different asset classes, be it in entertainment, human capacity building or experiences. The tourism industry is seen as a transformational sector when it comes to meeting sustainability goals and the sustainability aspect is now front and centre when it comes to investment in the Kingdom.”

The sustainability segment of the ITIC session was moderated by BBC Anchor Sameer Hashmi and the speakers for this session included: Amr El Kady, CEO, Egyptian Tourism Promotion Board; Dr Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat, Managing Director of Jordan Tourism Board, Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism Jamaica, Raki Phillips, CEO, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority; Maher Abou Nasr, Vice President Operations, KSA, IHG; and Hamza Farooqui, Founder & CEO, Millat Investments.

In terms of the challenges that sustainability presents to the tourism industry, aligning green policies across the public and private sector was highlighted as a priority. Global cooperation across countries is also vital as industry players work towards a common sustainability goal.

The panel agreed that beyond policy, ‘people’ are the most important consideration when it comes to sustainability in tourism. Bartlett concluded: “Globally, tourism is the fastest recovering industry since the pandemic, but growth has to be in harmony with sustainability. It’s about building people – because tourism is about people. We want to make sure that the beneficiaries of tourism, are the drivers of tourism. Tourism is about the environment and without the environment there is no tourism, therefore the sector has to be the custodian of climate management.”