MSN Arabia Travel Channel relaunches region's most popular travel website

The high-speed service is available through www.mytravelchannel.com, part of the MSN Arabia portal which enjoys an average of more than 650,000 visits a month and more than a million unique visitors since it started.

Finding and booking travel needs, in Arabic and English, from the comfort of home or office, is now simpler and swifter than ever. And as part of the relaunch promotion, every 100th flight booked on line and flown will be completely free.

Maurice Flanagan, Emirates Group Managing Director, said: "In the last year we've listened to our customers and trading partners and have used their feedback to develop the new enhanced site. They have given us tremendous insights on the information and services we should provide and how customers want to interact with the site.

"Thanks to the relaunch, we expect more than a million people a month from across the region to be visiting the site by this time next year, helping them to meet and fulfil their business and leisure travel needs."

As well as flights and bookings from all major cities in GCC, Levant and Egypt, the new site provides immediate access to a huge range of other travel products.

Its scale is simply enormous. David Robertson, Emirates' eVentures Business Development Manager for MSN Arabia Travel Channel, said: "The technology behind the site allows us to access the world's largest travel and hotel booking system.

"As well as having a global vision, we rely greatly on local partners who understand local markets. Local travel agencies in each country where we operate provide the vast majority of the flights on our site.

"This means users have access to competitively-priced fares at all times, and the convenience of being able to pick up tickets locally, or have them delivered direct to their door," he said.

Students from Zayed University helped to make the site the region's largest fully Arabised travel portal. Larry Lee, ZU Dean, explained: "We always look for opportunities to introduce our students to the real world of e-commerce.

"MSN Arabia Travel Channel's wealth of expertise has greatly helped our students to understand the techniques and skills needed to develop a major real-time website."

Simon Lewis, Manager MSN Arabia Travel Channel, said: "The students enthusiastically gave their time and energy to develop and test the Arabic part of the site, and provided independent verification of its potential based on multi-cultural research.

"They also gave us their own unique perspective on the Internet and the positive effect it is having on their day-to-day lives," Mr. Lewis said.

As part of the relaunch, MSN Arabia Travel Channel will run various promotions in coming months, the most attractive of which is that every hundredth flight booked through the site will be absolutely free.

Regular free flights, holidays, cruises and hotel stays will also feature on the site, arranged in partnership with many top world airlines, cruise companies, tour operators, hotel groups and car hire companies.

Mr. Robertson said: "As well as the expected benefits of simplicity, cost effectiveness and convenience, we believe customers will find the new site enjoyable and fun to use." Visit www.mytravelchannel.com