Dubai Tourism to open a regional office to drive growth in visitors from Asia Pacific

With the aim of driving growth in visitor numbers from countries within the Asia Pacific, Dubai’s Corporation of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM) today announced the establishment of a new hub office to service the region. The Asia Pacific Regional Office will oversee the work of DCTCM’s existent offices in the Far East, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to maximise the opportunity to increase visitor numbers from Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand.

Based in Sydney, Australia, the Asia Pacific Regional Office will be a DCTCM-owned office led by Julie King, with the responsibilities added to her current remit as Director of DCTCM’s Australia and New Zealand representative office.

To further strengthen the focus on the region, Shahab Al Shayan has been appointed as Regional Manager, Asia Pacific and will be based in DCTCM’s Head Office in Dubai.

The move is part of the strategy to deliver Dubai’s Tourism Vision 2020, which includes the headline target of welcoming 20 million visitors per year by the end of the decade, and follows recent strengthening of resources in the Australia and New Zealand office, in recognition of the visitor growth potential of the region.

Issam AbdulRahim Kazim, CEO of the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, said: “The Asia Pacific is of high strategic importance to us, with significant potential for growth across the whole region. The emerging economic power of the Asia Pacific countries is resulting in increased outward bound tourism and Dubai’s broad destination offering meets the varying demands of these tourists. With continual enhancements being made to our offering across hotels, events, attractions and services, the establishment of the regional office will result in a coordinated approach to communicating the fact that Dubai provides a compelling destination experience for both the individual and business travellers. With the connectivity afforded by Emirates, Qantas and other airlines that fly between the Asia Pacific countries and Dubai, our city is one that should be the next destination on the region’s tourist’s lists.”

Dubai’s hotels hosted more than 700,000 hotel guests from the Asia Pacific region in 2013 – an increase of 15 per cent from the previous year – and statistics for the first half of 2014 showed further growth. Emirates Airline operates 294 flights per week between the region and Dubai with numerous other airlines adding further options.

In the region DCTCM currently has representative offices in Hong Kong (servicing the Far East), Japan, and Australia (servicing Australia and New Zealand). The new regional office will oversee the work of these offices