Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, TCA Abu Dhabi, and Etihad Airways are expanding their Access Abu Dhabi trade engagement programme to five new markets this year, taking the campaign’s outreach to 10 countries across four continents. The year-long campaign has already notched up considerable success with hotel guest booking hikes from its initial target markets of Germany, the UK, Russia, India and Australia.
Now, for 2014, the programme will reach out to potential partners in China, France, Italy, Brazil and the USA. “During its first year of operation, Access Abu Dhabi progressed 38 destination co-marketing initiatives, undertook 10 destination familiarisation trips for travel agents and completed successful partner engagement missions in our initial target markets,” said Jasem Al Darmaki, Deputy Director-General, TCA Abu Dhabi. He added that the tourism authority has experienced “strong results” particularly from Germany and the UK, with a significant increase in the length of a guest stay emerging through packages sold by its travel and tour operator partners.
Partner recruitment
Access Abu Dhabi’s 2014 campaign has taken off in earnest with its dedicated team having already completed a partner recruitment drive in Italy and France, with more to come.
“We have already started engaging top tour operators in Italy and France and will start similar missions in the USA, specifically targeting New York and Los Angeles, our latest destination in the US. In South America, we will focus on Brazil to coincide with Sao Paolo’s promotion as a rising Latin American destination at the World Travel Market Latin America in April of this year,” said Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways’ Chief Commercial Officer.
