Maurice Flanagan Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Tourism

Maurice Flanagan, vice chairman and group president of Emirates, has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to tourism in Arabia to be presented at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference 2007 (Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai April 28-30 2007).

Flanagan, who is frequently acknowledged by the aviation industry for his role in steering the growth of Emirates, is singled out by the hotel investment sector in recognition of his contribution to the region’s burgeoning hospitality sector.

As an AHIC Lifetime Achievement Award winner Flanagan joins a ‘Hall of Fame’ that includes HRH Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company (2005) and His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice president and prime minister and ruler of Dubai (2006).

According to AHIC co-organiser, Jonathan Worsley, Flanagan won this prestigious award following online nominations made by the AHIC 50-strong advisory board comprising of key industry leaders.

“The Lifetime Achievement nominations were made during the inaugural advisory board for AHIC 2007 which saw Flanagan win the most votes. This award recognises Flanagan’s 20-plus years of dedication to the growth of the aviation, tourism & hospitality sectors in Arabia through his steadfast role at Emirates.”

“The conference theme, Global Aspirations, certainly reflects well with the critical role Flanagan has played in developing Emirates into a truly global brand and business. He has shown remarkable vision and leadership in creating a company that has set the benchmark for others,” Worsley said.

Flanagan supports a number of global and regional industry bodies and was recently elected to chair the newly-formed Middle East chapter of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). Flanagan joined BOAC (predecessor of the present-day British Airways) in 1953, fifty years after the Wright brothers’ historical flight and after having served in the UK’s Royal Air Force as a navigation officer. In 1978 he moved to Dubai, where he ran Dnata, today the second largest of the Emirates Group companies.

Seven years later, in October 1985, the government of Dubai threw him a once-in-a-lifetime challenge to play a key role in the creation of a new airline, and he became managing director of Emirates from its launch.

Under Flanagan’s two decade stewardship of Emirates, the airline has gone from two aircraft serving three destinations in India and Pakistan to a 90-plus fleet flying passengers and cargo to 83 destinations in 57 countries around the world and the network is expanding constantly. Nearly 550 flights fly out of Dubai per week covering five continents.

AHIC 2007, a curtain raiser to the Arabian Travel Market, is on target to gather more than 800 leaders representing the ‘who’s who’ of the global hotel investment industry. 

Alongside the conference theme, Global Aspirations, topics for discussion include opportunities in emerging markets; global investment and regional trends, anomalies of Middle East management contracts; presentation on selected mega projects and the future of independent luxury lifestyle hotels in a consolidating environment to name but a few.

AHIC 2007, jointly organised by The Bench and the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), will run from April 28-30, 2007 at Dubai’s Madinat Jumeirah Convention Centre.

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