'Dubai is no longer a seasonal destination'

Carl Vaz, director of DTCM (India) speaks about how Dubai is shifting gears from being a shopping destination to a year-round holiday getaway. By Andrea Lopez

Carl Vaz Director, DTCM (India)

What are the new products that DTCM has on offer for Indian travellers?

The focus this year is on leisure and sporting activities - golf, indoor skiing and cruising. We are looking at promoting golfing to Indian travellers through tie-ups with golf clubs in India. This will be in place by September this year.

We have also planned a 45-day promotional campaign in four major cities - Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata. Apart from marketing Ski Dubai, one of the world's largest snow ski domes, we will be working closely with Costa Cruises for marketing cruise itineraries to Dubai, Bahrain and Oman. We will be targeting the travel trade community through one-on-one interactions and workshops and the general public through mass media advertising. DTCM has also entered into a marketing initiative with VFS and Marhaba to offer visas to travellers.

How has Dubai evolved as a destination?

Dubai is no longer a seasonal destination or a destination that hinges on certain events like shopping. The Dubai Shopping Festival has undoubtedly contributed to its popularity, but we've become more of a year-round destination. We have sporting events like the Dubai World Cup, which is the world's richest horse racing event, in February we have the Dubai Tennis Open. We also have Dubai Summer Surprises in August and September, which targets the Asian community. We have a calendar of different activities that take place throughout the year, from sporting activities to food festivals. Dubai originated as a shopping destination 12 years ago, but we have diversified.

How have manmade attractions contributed to Dubai's success story?

Both indoor and outdoor theme parks are very popular with tourists. Wonderland spans acres of land and is an open-air theme park. We also have other attractions for children like 'Magic Planet'; they are located inside malls and have gaming studios, bumper cars and 3D games. The Dubai government is in the process of developing a theme park called Dubai Land, which is estimated to be one of the world's largest theme parks. Dubai has invested in infrastructure because of the foresight of its leaders to diversify the economy and tourism has played a key role in this process.

Is DTCM looking to target the smaller cities in India as well?

Yes, the future of travel to Dubai lies in smaller cities because of affluence and NRI investment. Large number of tourists can be derived from cities like Chennai, Cochin, Nagpur and Chandigarh. We are planning travel trade events in Indore in August and are planning to target places like Jamshedpur and Bhubaneshwar as well.

What targets is DTCM looking to attain?

The challenge for the future is to increase the average length of stay. We have been successful in converting Dubai from a three-night to a four-night holiday destination. The challenge now is to convert a regular holiday into a seven to eight night package. With new projects like the Dubai Palm Islands, and Dubai Land due to come up in the next few years, we expect the average stay to increase.

We have registered an eight per cent growth in Indian tourists since the past one year. We had close to 3,90,000 Indians staying in hotels in 2006, both business and leisure and hotel revenues for 2006 accounted for 11 billion dirhams, roughly US$ 3.5 billion. For the year 2007, we are targeting 4,30,000 Indian travellers. Eventually, the idea is to make Dubai a long term holiday destination, not a weekend getaway or a stopover holiday and market it much like destinations in Europe are marketed today.

Any specialist programmes that DTCM is planning for the travel trade?

We plan to do great things with our online portal, www.friendsofdubai.com, which is exclusively for the Indian travel trade. Firstly to keep the trade informed, we introduced online contests through which agents could educate themselves about Dubai. The second was to make the entire process transparent, so winners of the contests were announced online.

The third was to familiarise the trade about the events that DTCM is organising in various parts of the country. The portal has met with a good amount of success. In fact, I think we are the only tourism board to have initiated a dedicated website for the travel trade in India. We plan to relaunch the site in September this year. It will come with enhanced graphics and more comprehensive data for the travel trade.