Claviger unlocks the unexplored

The GCC traveller is defined as a high spender who seeks exclusive and personalised travel experiences. A veteran in the field of sales and marketing in the hospitality sector, Ahmed Baki, Founder & CEO, Claviger, identified this segment and ventured out to establish his company which mediates business for this market.

TT Bureau

What does the term Claviger mean?
The term Claviger means the one who holds the key. We believe that as the holder of the key, we have gained access to multiple segments in the outbound market of the GCC mainly due to the fact that we cater to the main necessity of the clientele language ‘Arabic’ – this provides an edge in the key markets we are focused on.

Could you share the reason for venturing into a hospitality sales and marketing consultancy?
Having served in various positions over the past 25 years in multinational hotel brands, I saw an opportunity for the outbound luxury market from GCC for hotels based in Europe, Asia and the US. Everyone was looking for luxury high-end clients such as the senior government officials as well as clients from the private sector to experience hotels in the US, Europe and Asia, but accessibility to these kinds of clients was not easy. Initially, we identified this gap and saw a very good opportunity in the market as we had the expertise of serving in multinational hotels in the UAE. Thus came about the vision for Claviger. As we celebrate three years, we have grown exponentially in terms of our team as well as the number of clients we handle.

What are the areas managed by Claviger? How do you differentiate from other players?
We work on multiple areas such as corporate, travel agencies, wholesalers, government, semigovernment, private, royalty, incentive, luxury concierge in multiple markets. Our clients are interested in our services due to our experiences, know-how and network we have in this part of the world. What we actually started was to create the best talent, hence Claviger acquired and recruited top talent in the GCC market. Our assets are essentially our talents. We have the best directors of marketing in Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait, etc from different markets in the GCC. Today, we cover 100 per cent of the GCC countries where we have great talent on ground.

Each person employed at Claviger comes with his/her expertise from various backgrounds and markets. There is a good network of clients with each team member boasting about a wealth of knowledge of the various markets we cater to. Having multilingual speakers also helps us reach out to different markets seamlessly.