DTCM launch interactive electronic map of Dubai

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The comprehensive website is presently available in English, Arabic, German, French, Spanish and Japanese languages. The website receives an average of 1.5 million hits a day, making it the most-popular web address for anything about the booming year-round business and leisure destination.

Dubai's impressive portfolio of 409 hotels and hotel apartments with over 40,000 rooms played host to 6.2 million guests in 2005, an increase of 14 % over the previous year.

Launched softly, it allows tourists and residents the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the very best Dubai has to offer.

The map offers a convenient search facility of the major landmarks in the emirate in addition to a handy directory of hotels, hotel apartments, shopping malls, hospitals, diplomatic missions, heritage sites, places of interest, and upcoming mega projects among a host of important points of interest.

Areas of interest can be expanded for greater details and printed for hard-copy use. For those without the Java plug-in on their computers, the department has made available a downloadable non-interactive, non-printable version of the map.

The DTCM Manager Information Technology, Mr. Suhail Buhelaiba, said:

'The new facility provides a virtual tour of Dubai. It enhances the appeal of the DTCM website in the online community. This will come handy to millions of Dubai visitors as well as the residents. The usage of this map will be immense to everyone, especially businesses and tourists.'

The map has been exclusively designed for the DTCM with the software provided by Belhane, a German Cartography company with over 350 maps in Europe to its credit.

The department has partnered with Easy Map Advertising which produced the Dubai at a Glance printed maps. They will be responsible for marketing the advertising space on the map.

The company will also enable a business in Dubai to locate them on the map and provide power-links.

There are plans to add a powerful route locator to this map by the year-end to chart possible routes to a destination within the emirate.

Additional lists and street numbers are also being added to the detailed street map.

The DTCM launched the website in 1996, one of the first government organizations to have a web presence.

The portal's visibility has been enhanced through a link on the Dubai e-Government portal. In 1999, the department launched online service to allow the visitors to find and reserve rooms at Dubai hotel establishments.