Dubai Investment News
Emirates adds A380 aircrafts to Brisbane route
Emirates has announced that Brisbane will be the third Australian destination to be served by its doubledecker A380 planes.The airline already operates such services to Sydney and Melbourne and this latest announcement will ensure even more people can travel between Dubai and Australia.It will open up an extra 135 seats per flight – the equivalent of 1,890 a week – and the service will also go on to Auckland in New Zealand.Salem Obaidalla, Emirates' senior vice president of commercial operations in the Far East and Australasia, said the firm is the first to bring this revolutionary aircraft to the Queensland-based airport.He added that the decision to enhance services on this particular route was made on the back of rising demand for travel between Australia/New Zealand and the UAE.”The Dubai-Brisbane-Auckland route is a popular choice among business and leisure travellers alike and the new Emirates A380 service will be instrumental in helping Emirates meet its passenger demand as well as deliver considerable economic benefits through inbound seats and travel connections,” he remarked.Mr Obaidalla said Australia is an important market for Emirates and the country is in the top three countries on the carrier's international network.The new A380 offering will launch in October 2013 and by then the company will be providing six daily A380 services between Dubai and Australia.Emirates only started to offer A380 flights in 2008, but since then it has carried 14 million passengers on 35,000 trips around the world.The firm recently secured a deal with prominent Australian airline Qantas, which will further help to connect the two countries.Earlier this week (May 13th), the pair announced that New Zealand's minister for transport had approved the agreement. This is important, as Emirates is keen to increase its presence in New Zealand.President of Emirates Tim Clark labelled the organisation's relationship with Qantas as a “game-changing partnership” that brings together two of the world's leading carriers. Continue reading
Small Middle Eastern businesses are performing well
Family businesses based in the Middle East performed very well last year, despite the fact the global economy is still far from stable.A new study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed that 83 per cent of small enterprises based in this part of the world reported a rise in sales. This was much higher than the global average, which stood at just 65 per cent.Confidence is high among start-up organisations in places like Dubai, with 23 per cent of firms planning “aggressive growth” in the next five years. Only nine per cent thought they would struggle in the near future.PwC's Family Business Survey also showed that women are having a greater influence in smaller companies across the Middle East.The main challenges facing businesses of this nature are family politics, succession planning and the recruitment of skilled staff, the report discovered.That said, Amin Nasser, partner and private clients leader at PwC Middle East, thinks the future is bright for entrepreneurs in the Gulf.”Our survey clearly shows that family businesses in the Middle East will continue growing significantly,” he remarked.”Compared with the rest of the world, family businesses in the Middle East are less fazed by the general economic situation. This has created a strong framework for family businesses to continue targeting ambitious goals, bringing stability to a balanced economy.”The UAE has become a major international corporate hub in the past few decades and a multitude of blue chip companies have set up bases in Dubai.Earlier this year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum – ruler of Dubai and vice president/prime minister of the UAE – said the city was looking to become the world's leading Islamic business centre.The Islamic finance sector has grown in stature over the years and is now one of the most lucrative industries on the planet. The emirate could set up a central sharia board, which will oversee all Islamic financial products used in Dubai. Continue reading
Dubai continues to target Chinese tourists
Tourism chiefs in Dubai will reach out to Chinese holidaymakers in a bid to swell the city's visitor numbers in the coming years.Although the emirate is already one of the most popular destinations in the Middle East, Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) is keen to persuade even more people to take a vacation in the emirate.Director general of the state-run body Helal Saeed Almarri said China is “a market of the future” for Dubai, Xinhua reports.Hoteliers throughout the region are already tailoring packages with Asian travellers specifically in mind and this is a trend that is likely to gather pace in the coming years.Last year, the city attracted 300,000 Chinese visitors, which was a 26 per cent increase on 2011, according to figures provided by the DTCM.As you would perhaps expect, Dubai is inundated with tourists during the Chinese New Year celebrations and statistics show that 60 per cent of guests at the seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel at this time of year are Chinese.A spokesperson for the five-star Armani Hotel told the news provider that people from the Asian country are particularly keen to stay in resorts that have Chinese restaurants and Mandarin-speaking staff, so this is something that other hotel owners will have to consider if they are to successfully tap into this market.While China is clearly a crucial market for the DTCM, Mr Almarri suggested that people are flooding in from other parts of the world too.”Visitors from India and Africa are also poised to generate the necessary momentum to reach the ambitious goal expressed by Dubai ruler His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum,” he was quoted as saying.Overall, Dubai is aiming to double the number of holidaymakers spending time in the city to 20 million by 2020 and with a plethora of exciting new developments nearing completion, the emirate is certainly going the right way about attracting more and more visitors. Continue reading
