Tour operators report excellent start to Dubai Summer Surprises

Tour operators, a major beneficiary of the event, have over the years, reinforced that summer has indeed become the next most important tourism season after Dubai Shopping Festival.

Tour operators form an aggressive group of business associates who accompany the Dubai Summer Surprises officials on the DSS road shows to different GCC cities.

Mr. V. B. Sajeev, Manager, White Sands Tours & Travel, "Business is coming through from the GCC countries at an increasingly fast pace. Towards the end of July and August, we are confident that the number of families visiting the city for longer durations of time will become proportionately higher. GCC travellers have some excellent hotel packages to choose from, and given that the school vacations have already started in the GCC, the numbers are only set to increase. Certain amounts of sub-continental from South Asia are also visiting the city.

Mr. Hussam Emam, Senior Manager, Travco said, "We are getting a huge demand from families from the GCC countries. Although the statistics are still to filter through, initial trends show that we will have an even better DSS than last year. This year, the newest trend is that families from Abu Dhabi are booking rooms for a very long duration of time attracted mainly by the variety of events that are offered to families with young children. The hotels and hotel apartments evidently are benefiting from the DSS with increased occupancy figures."

Mr. Werner Brosse, Business Development Manager, Destinations of the World, said, "Business is booming this summer, as GCC travellers are shunning traditional tourist destinations for the summer in Europe and the South East Asia. The city hotels are benefiting the maximum, as families with kids from the GCC countries prefer to stay near shopping malls. In fact, our staff strength of sixty-five people is thoroughly busy as we are flooded with phone calls from eager travellers. We are confident that this trend will be maintained throughout the summer. "

Mr. Fadi Maskour, Business Development Director, Alpha Tours, "In terms of the number of people coming in from the GCC countries, we have started off with a good percentage. We had negotiated with the hotels excellent packages for desert safaris, cruises and fishing trips. The pick-up on these excursions have been very good. The European and the CIS markets also generate a good amount of business this time of the year."

Today is the last day of Colour Surprises theme week. DSS 2003 will continue with Sweet Surprises, Knowledge Surprises, Ice Surprises, Arts Surprises, Heritage Surprises, Adventure Surprises, and will end with Back-to-School Surprises on August 29th, 2003.