New Gulf travel guide makes more of your airport time

Bored of spending time in the airport? Always wondered what you could do with your stopover? A new travel guide for the Gulf provides the answers, and aims to make life easier for the millions of passengers who fly to, from or through this region every year.

Covering six airports and cities in the region - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Bahrain, Kuwait and Doha - it provides up-to-date information on everything from checking-in, transport options and duty-free shopping to nearby attractions and tours for short-stay travellers.

With air traffic booming in the region, last year more than 60 million people used the six airports covered by the guide - remarkably, a figure which is almost seven times the combined population of the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

"The Gulf is the perfect place to launch the first of our magazines," says Alex Warren, Editor in Chief.

"Thanks to airlines like Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad, a huge and constantly growing number of business and leisure passengers now connect through the Gulf, often between Europe and Asia."

"The idea behind our concept is to change the way people use that airport time. We've all spent hours sitting around inside terminals waiting for planes, but why do this when you could go to the beach, see some city highlights or pay to use a business-class lounge? Our guide fills a real gap in the information that's available both for international travellers and locally-based flyers who regularly use these airports."

Published quarterly in a compact, easy-to-carry format, the guide is being distributed across the region, including inside Dubai International Airport's Terminal 1, and is also available in targeted locations outside of the Gulf. An online version will be launched in November 2007 and coverage will next year be expanded to other regions.

"It's a matter of changing the way that people think about airports - and perhaps the way that airports think about people," says Peter Johannink, Consulting Editor. "People from all around the world are travelling more and more every year, but today's realities of extra security, long queues and regular delays mean that we're all spending more time in airports. At the same time, the new generation of airports are almost becoming cities within themselves, so there's a real need for accurate and practical information to help people make more of their travel time."