TravTalk Middle East Online Magazine
Bolstered by an attendance of 900 local dignitaries, stakeholders and Chinese partners, the two-day Dubai China Conference by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) aimed to further reinforce the emirate’s deep and continued commitment to China.
TT Bureau
The two-day Dubai China Conference brought together industry players to share insights from the China market, while outlining Dubai Tourism’s ongoing collaborations to reconfirm its continued focus on one of the most important global source markets. The close relationship between China and Dubai is evident in the willingness of the emirate to become fully ‘China-ready’. Large-scale initiatives, in collaboration with strategic partners like Alipay and WeChat Pay are already in place, ensuring Dubai is prepared to increase visitors from China. The forum is a clear indication of China’s rising prominence as one of Dubai’s fastest-growing source markets, after closing the first six months of 2018 with a record 453,000 visitors – a growth of 9 per cent over the same period in 2017. Key contributing factors to this significant increase in visitors include the introduction of visa-on-arrival for Chinese citizens and recent partnership agreements with Huawei, Fliggy and Tencent.
HE Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General, Dubai Tourism, said, “China remains one of our fastest growing source markets and we expect this to continue over the coming years. Our strategic agreements have not only increased market penetration with native language content and complimented our marketing across our four in-market offices, but have also advanced the China-ready commitment of Dubai Tourism for visitors. Private and public sector collaboration on activities such as citywide Chinese New Year celebrations are just some of the undertakings by the department over the past three years.”
Dubai Tourism was joined by key partners including Fliggy, Huawei, Mafwengo, Tencent, Ctrip and Dianping. The conference is expected to promote Dubai Tourism’s China market efforts while highlighting key opportunities to stakeholders within the industry. Panel members tackled 360 marketing plans, digital platform presence and digital content enhancements, air capacity collaboration with key aviation partners and a Dubai Way China module for the industry. Additionally, the conference introduced key market stakeholders in China, from the travel sector and beyond, apart from presenting opportunities on how to work with partners to make Dubai more China-ready
