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A senior executive of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority said they are now prioritizing tourism investment as part of its strategy of diversification. Faisal Abdullah Al-Sheikh spoke about investment plans at a press conference at the Jeddah Marriot yesterday. He said Abu Dhabi is a wealthy country and has for many years depended on oil for revenue, “but now we are giving a tremendous boost to the potentially…
Airline executives gathering at an industry event in Kuala Lumpur dismissed talk of “green shoots” and signs of recovery in the slumping airline industry. Executives maintain it will be at least two years before resurgence will take place. Replying to a question about evidence of a recovery, President of Emirates Airline Tim Clark said “Green shoots? That’s something which has been trotted out for the last…
Global Hyatt is planning to increase its four star limited service in the Middle East. Managing Director for Hyatt in South East Asia said “this is an area we will further expand in the Middle East.” Peter Fulton explained Hyatt Summerfield Suites is an upscale all suite brand while Hyatt Place are full service mid-scale hotels. He said “We also have 8 properties under construction of which four to six could…
Luxury hotel brand Essque Hotels, based in Dubai, signed a contract Saturday to manage the Zalu Resort & Spa in Zanzibar. The five start resort is scheduled to open in 2010, and Essque Hotels will manage it for Maisha, an Italian hotel development company. Essque Hotels agreement to manage the Zanzibar retreat is consistent with its plans to develop a global footprint. Zalu Resort & Spa has 9 private villas…
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) revised its financial forecast for airlines in 2009 downward – to a global loss of $9 billion. This almost twice the $4.7 billion loss estimate in March, demonstrating that the revenue environment is quickly worsening. IATA also increased its last 2008 loss estimate from $8.5 billion to $10.4 billion
Low cost carrier flydubai, which began operations just one week ago, will add two new flight services this week. Service to Damascus, Syria will begin today when flydubai’s flight FZ229 departs from Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 2 at 7:10 pm. The flight will arrive in Damascus three hours and twenty minutes later at about 9:30pm local time. The new service to Alexandria, Egypt will begin with the…
The Food and Hotel Oman 2009 exhibitions will be held in October 2009 and will boost the hotel industry in the region. Promoters for the exhibition said the continued growth in demand for food products in the Omani market will be reinforced. Organizers of the Oman expo said hotel equipment and supplies, a wide variety of food and beverages, food processing technologies, packaging products, and catering…
A Lodging Econometrics reports shows the number of planned hotel projects in the Middle East has decreased because of the global financial crisis. Lodging Econometrics is a US based hotel property research company. There were 124 hotel projects being developed in Dubai for a total of 48,855 rooms and accounting for 34% of all hotel projects in the region. The number of hotel projects in the Middle East…
More than half of Sarah’s restaurants fail basic food hygiene inspections because of out of date food and moldy kitchens. The head of internal inspection department for Sharjah Municipality said that out of 1,588 restaurants, only 223 met minimum requirements. The remaining 891 restaurants were issued written warnings and 474 were closed temporarily until required improvements are made. Restaurants that…
Hilton Hotels from Madinah, Makkah, Riyadh, and Jeddah have assembled at the Conrad Cairo in order to showcase their fashionable and luxurious hotels to the Egyptian travel market. Within the Middle East, Saudi Arabia captures the most market volume (trips) and value (expenditure) and Egypt is the leading market. Hilton Hotels would like to attract Egyptian clientele. Saudi Hilton hotels are providing a…
Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal presided over the opening of the final phase of the road expansion between Al-Kur and Hada. The Prince said the road is important to the regions overall development because it cuts by half the distance between the cities of Taif and Makkah. Prince Khaled said “The expanded double lane road is a vital developmental project serving not only the people of Taif but the…
Following the discovery of the country’s first case of swine flu last week, the Health Ministry has escalated swine flu screening at all of the Kingdom’s entry points. Orderly screening procedures were observed at the South Terminal of Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport on Saturday. A Saudi official said “Things are under control” and they are focusing their screening procedures on countries on the…
The UAE and Columbia signed a memorandum of understanding that will increase the number of flights between the two countries. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the UAE and its counterpart in Columbia reached an agreement to add as many as 28 passenger flights between the two countries. The CAA said there are plans to begin an equal number of cargo services each week. This is the first such agreement…
A senior official with the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing said they will announce the new classification system for hotels in Dubai next quarter. Director of Hotel Classification at DTCM said they expect to finalize the classification system soon and hope the new classification will be out in the third quarter of this year. Currently, criteria established in 1998 are the basis for one to…
Holiday travel out of Dubai is on the increase after three weeks of subdued activity due to concerns over the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico this April. Dubai tourist agencies report many destinations have been swapped and Middle Eastern countries are favored by most families. However, corporate travel in Europe and North America are generally the same. Deputy General Manager for Al Reis Travel said…
Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) will direct hotels to reduce hotel rates by up to 50% in order to increase tourism numbers during the Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS) shopping festival. DTCM Director of Business said they expect Dubai hotels to cut rates between 40% and 50% during DSS, which runs for 65 days beginning on 11 June 2009. During the Dubai Shopping Festival earlier this…
Up to 691 families Al-Ais are staying in Yanbu hotels and furnished apartments at government expense. These are people who were evacuated from the earthquake prone region. Property owners have expressed concerned that their continued presence will negatively affect business and cause huge losses. The families from Al-Ais are provided furnished apartments discounted between SR100 and SR350 depending on the…
More than 200 Dubai hotels will compete for a carbon emissions reduction award which will be presented in December. The hotels will attempt to reduce their carbon emissions by more than 20% in order to make the hospitality industry more sustainable. Dubai hotels generate considerably more carbon emissions than their counterparts in Europe - about 6,500 tons of carbon emissions every year. Hotels in Europe…
