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Dubai Summer Surprises set to receive huge visitor numbers from Iran

15 June 2002

Following the successful campaign to attract greater numbers of Iranian visitors to DSF, the same response is now expected for DSS 2002.

Change is inevitable and tourism is not exempt from the shift in demographics and trends that affect the growth and development of a destination. Recognizing these changes in the tourism industry and its associated economic impact, the Dubai Shopping Festival and the Dubai Summer Surprises have taken a proactive approach to attracting the Iranian tourist to the UAE.

Iran has been specifically pinpointed as a source of large numbers of potential visitors, thanks in part to the proximity of the country to the UAE and the fact that Iran has a sizeable demographic of young families - a fact borne out by the excellent number of Iranian visitors to DSF 2002. 

"As part of our strategy to increase brand awareness of DSS and DSF overseas, we felt that Iran was an important market for us to tap into," explains Ibrahim Saleh, Chief Operating Officer DSS and DSF. "However, our subsequent research discovered that there was already strong brand awareness of the two events in Iran, and that the stumbling block was confusion over the issue of visitors' visas to the UAE. This problem has been tackled by a concerted information campaign in Iran explaining the straightforward process for visa applications for families, and the result has been the huge numbers of visitors arriving for DSF and DSS."

Promotions and awareness campaigns of DSS and DSF, as well as Dubai's rapidly expanding tourist industry, have been greatly facilitated by the inclusion for the first time of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, Department of Ports Authority and the Customs Free Zone Authority at the UAE Exhibition - an event that showcases the UAE in Iran and is now in its second year.

"The UAE exhibition has attracted substantial interest this year in Iran, with more than 40,000 visitors passing through over the four days, compared to 18,000 visitors last year," says Abdullah Salem Al Madani, Managing Director of Index Exhibitions. "The event was covered by seven Iranian TV channels as well as all the newspapers. This year was the first that we included a tourism industry element and such was the response that next year's UAE Exhibition we will certainly expand heavily on the tourism sector."

Dubai has also found itself to be a popular venue for famous Iranian singers, thanks to its facilities, with concerts attracting huge interest from around the region and further afield. 

This, combined with the popularity of DSF and DSS, has produced remarkable marketing opportunities as Faranak Mahmoudi,, Representative of Los Angeles-based station Tapesh TV, a popular Pharsee TV channel, admits: "DSS and DSF helps us to package fantastic value to the concert tours that we organize for top Iranian singers, including Ghoogoosh, Daryush and Siyavash Ghomaishi. 

"The Iranian concerts during DSF 2002 saw more than 6,000 Iranian tourists fly into to Dubai from the USA and Europe and around 25,000 from Iran. Our concert coinciding with DSS 2002 has lineup that includes Faramarz Asfef, Shahrum, Boys, and Shahyad as well as other familiar faces from Tapesh TV. Needless to say, bookings for this mega event are already full."

Air links between the two countries have strengthened significantly to accommodate this increase in traffic, with Iranair now operating seven flights a week between Teheran and Dubai and Emirates operating 10 flights a week. There are also scheduled services from Kish, Shiraz and Isfahan to Dubai.

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