TravTalk Middle East Online Magazine
The travel relationship between Europe and the GCC have been strengthening year on year, this was also seen when travel escalated as soon as the European borders opened for travel. JVR Fernando, Chief Commercial Officer, Satguru Travel, shares his insights with TravTalk about this relationship further.
TT Bureau
As a travel curator, how do you see the European market adjusting and adhering to make GCC travellers more welcome in their destinations?
Many European countries are permitting visa on arrival for GCC nationals and residents, and some others are having quick procedures is one of the key factors. Ease of travel restriction from the European countries attracting more traveliers from the GCC region.
What are the key areas the European destinations focus on to accommodate GCC travellers? Language, food, rooms or any other aspect?
Europe countries have been quite popular among the GCC travellers who have been travelling to experience different culture, culinary and the township the country has to offer, which is different to what they have in the GCC.
How do they see GCC travellers against other travellers in terms of importance? Is it their spending power, loyalty or any other trait?
GCC travellers of course have been an important segment of customers for them, as their spending at the destination is higher than any other tourist, from the choice of hotels to dining, shopping to traveling across the cities, has always been upscale. Also, travellers from this region travel mostly with the large families on a holiday and love spending highly on ground, this is also due to the currency and regular daily spend they do in GCC is higher than any European countries.
In terms of travellers from UAE or the rest of GCC, what do they expect when they select European destinations?
They do love the sceneries with different landscape and a peaceful environment to relax, trying to cover more cities which could offer that is key for them when selecting a destination.
Why do travellers from UAE or the rest of GCC decide on European holidays? Do they go with family? How do they travel and what are the main attractions they like to visit? How much time do they spend?
The main reason of course is the climate and change of scenery can happen easily from one place to another. We have a lot of groups & family travellers, the major spots are the main attractions in the cities which can be mostly covered by just walking around the cities. On an average, we see a trend of 6-10 days of holiday duration for our travellers.
Once again, as a travel curator how do you prepare them for the destination? What would you say will be your key role? How do you advise them?
We have dedicated holiday experts working under the DMC department who take care of our Corporate, B2B and B2C customers. Moreover, our presence in more than 72 countries is the biggest dominance to handle our customers as we can provide 100 per cent ground support to the travellers.
