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Middle East Travellers Prefer Malaysia, Thailand
Malaysia and Thailand are now the top selling global holiday destinations for Emirates Holidays (EH) after its own home base of Dubai.
A subsidiary of Emirates airlines (the equivalent of Thai Airways' International Royal Orchid Holidays), EH is the largest tour operator in the Gulf countries. Last week, it launched its annual brochure for 2005-06, which features more than 100 destinations in 36 countries. About 500,000 copies are distributed through travel agents in the Middle East, Africa, Southern Europe and Asia, with 150,000 copies in Arabic primarily for the Gulf market.
In the 2004-05 fiscal year ending on March 30, 2005, EH recorded 99,000 clients, which was up 14% over the previous year, and slightly under its target due to the impact of the tsunami.
However, the revenue of 355 million dirhams (about US$97 million) was up 23%. This fiscal year, Emirates Holidays is again looking at 20-25% growth in both passengers and revenue.With 21 pages each in the 2005-06 brochure, Malaysia and Thailand are the only ones offered as honeymoon destinations and also included in the cruises section. Thailand is featured as well in the spa section, along with Indonesia.
In 2004-05, while the home base of Dubai attracted the largest number of visitors, Malaysia came in next with roughly 7,000 travellers followed by Thailand with 5,500. This equated respectively to 25,000 and 20,000 room-nights.
EH vice-president John Felix attributed this to the strong marketing promotions by the Tourism Authority of Thailand and Tourism Malaysia as well as the strong presence of destinations such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur on the Emirates route network.
He praised Thai and Malaysian suppliers for giving good deals and making it possible for the destinations to reflect a wide range of product offerings.
The seven other destinations in the top-ten league are the United Kingdom, Egypt, Mauritius, the Maldives, Singapore, Lebanon and India. The six fastest growing destinations for EH are Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
This year's brochure launch group included 48 exhibitors, with a new presence by Russia and the German city of Hamburg. The 455 invited travel agents were up from under 400 last year, with a large presence from Russia, India, Pakistan and African countries including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, all of whom are showing good sales growth albeit off a small base.
Mr Felix said the Africa market was well worth watching. EH is ensuring higher levels of support for agents there to help them target the mid to upper income market.
While most of the outbound passengers from Africa are heading for Dubai, primarily because visas can be organised for them fairly easily, many are also heading for Europe, India and parts of the Far East. The numbers are still small but Mr Felix sees strong growth in the years ahead.
EH appointed its first distributor in India last October to deal with agents and provide booking support. India outbound is good for first- and business-class passengers and heads mainly for Dubai but growing to some points in Europe.
The Russia market, mainly weather-related, is developing strongly for the beach destinations of the Seychelles, Maldives and Mauritius, in addition to Dubai. Mr Felix said it comprised mainly independent travellers and would grow over time, including to Asia, once the EH brand is established in Moscow.
The US market is still in the doldrums as Middle East visitors avoid travelling to the Middle East. Business to Lebanon has also been affected due to the recent disturbances there.
Mr Felix said Emirates Holidays would start tapping the Chinese and Korean outbound markets ``once India and Russia are settled''.
In all these new markets, various issues related to language, taxation, legalities and structure need to be sorted out, along with the need to ensure that EH does not upset the business already coming from existing operators.
Mr Felix said cruises were picking up as people get used to it and more vessels were stopping in Dubai.
One key technological upgrade to boost sales this year is the launch of TradeNet, a real-time electronic information pricing, quotation and availability system designed to help travel agents respond immediately to customer inquiries without the need to contact the local EH office.
This has removed a major irritant and competitive disadvantage. Price-conscious and late-booking customers didn't like having to wait until the following day to get pricing information. Now, pricing can be adjusted immediately according to seasonality, location and market focus.
Mr Felix urged suppliers to ``get smart'' about how they use the system and to drive business because indirectly, it would ``separate the serious suppliers from the not-so-serious suppliers''.
Noting that customers chose destinations first and the products later, he said, ``Suppliers will need to give us allocations as it involves the visibility of their hotels. The release period will have to match our markets.''
He also urged the hotels to better co-ordinate between their rooms divisions and food and beverage units, which have been known to work at cross-purposes in attempting to maximise their profitability.
The system will also allow Emirates Holidays to better check the performances of individual properties and suppliers which means that if they ``don't offer the package we want, we simply don't include them''.
Mr Felix said the 1,000 agents on TradeNet could also track their own performance to see whether they were meeting targets.
Imtiaz Muqbil is executive editor of Travel Impact Newswire, an e-mailed feature and analysis service focusing on the Asia-Pacific travel industry.
Bangkok 09/05/2005
