ADTA Director General stresses importance of Abu Dhabi participation at WTM 2006

The Emirate is participating on the 27th round of the WTM alongside a record breaking 5, 600 travel industry firms, representing 202 countries and regions. Spearheaded by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), Abu Dhabi will stage an island-like pavilion comprising over 140 stands stretching over an area of 403 sq.

Staged annually in London under one roof, World Travel Market is business to business exhibition and also introduces delegates to a fresh and innovative dimension into the travel and tourism industry. The event is dubbed as one of the largest tourism gatherings in the world and is attended by an elite of travel and tourism specialists, tourism projects developers, tourism agents, travel and tour operators, aviation companies, festival and conference organizers and many others. It also attracts thousands of policy and decision makers in the industry worldwide.

In remarks on the participation of Abu Dhabi, Al Muhairi said:

"The ADTA attaches considerable importance to such international events as they tend to have positive promotional rewards for the emirate. This is basically why our participation has increased recently. While we took part in 10 international exhibitions this year, we are planning to participate at 13 exhibitions next year. We are also considering participation in two more exhibitions."

Al Muhairi revealed that the DTA has chalked out a plan to tap the travel and tourism markets in Western Europe and Russia in addition to China which is emerging as another promising market. The ADTA will participate in one of the shows in China next year. This participation comes at a time when Etihad airways is planning to organize flights to Shanghai.

On the ADTA overseas expansion plans, Al Muhairi revealed a plan to open an office in Paris by the end of this year or early next year. While the ADTA has continued to reinforce its representative offices in London and Frankfurt, it is also considering plans to set up offices in Russia and Scandinavia in the future.
"The role of these offices is to promote Abu Dhabi by organizing familiarization trips for tour operators and media organizations. These trips will enable them to gain first hand view about the potentials of Abu Dhabi", said Al Muhairi

The ADTA official cited the Incentives awareness programme which the tourism body had launched on the Internet, and which is aimed at raising the awareness and knowledge of tour operators in Germany and the UK. This programme, he said, was a tremendous success and it attracted over 1000 participants from each of these two countries.

The ADTA Director noted that Abu Dhabi saw the birth of many different and exciting initiatives this year, notably the launch of the Incentives Tourism Exhibition which will be held in March next year, the launch of the Sadiyaat Island, the launch of Tourism Development and Investment Company TDIC, whose brainchild include the Dhs.1billion Golf Garden real estate project which is developed by Surouh Property Development Company. Another key project is the Raha Beach Development project developed by Al Dar Properties. The project which spread across an area of 5.2 square meters along the Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway road is set to turn the area into a beautiful entrance façade for the UAE capital.

The Abu Dhabi pavilion comprises five major stands for the industry heavyweights, namely the Abu Dhabi Airport Company, Abu Dhabi National Hotels Company, Dana Hotels and Resorts, Emirates Palace Hotel, Etihad airways in addition to 24 other names such as Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Alpha Tours, Crown Plaza, Desert Adventures etc.

Some 20,000 industry specialists are participating in the exhibition along with media delegates from 3000 organizations. The number of visitors is expected to increase to 25,000 visitors.