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IT’S A PLEASURE TO BE HERE.
TALKING ABOUT TRAVEL AND TOURISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST…
Turn on the television and the scenes of violence in the Middle East tell one story. And yet tourism is booming in the region exponentially - thanks to the bargain prices currently provided by dollar-linked currencies and fabulous new hotels and shoppertainment avenues.
Tourism not only provides job opportunities and brings more dollar but more importantly helps in cultural exchanges in today’s globalised world
I am now going to share my views on travel and tourism market in Saudi and UAE especially in the context of Arab woman. Let me add that these are my opinion based on limited reserach in this sector
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Let me start by giving you the UAE perspective:
The total economic activity was to the tune of 97 billion dirham in 2006. This is Likely to grow to 171 billion dirham in 2016 even at the current growth rate.
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Out of the 97 billion in 2006, 37 billion dirham was a result of spending by foreign visitors …and this figure is likely to grow to 26 billion dirhams by 2016
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Out of this 37 billion, 21 billion dirham was a result of spending on travel and tourism by residents in the UAE …and this figure is likely to grow to 36 billion dirham in 10 years time
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8 billion dirham in business travel… 6.6. million tourists and the world’s largest sector are some of the interesting and impressive statistic in this region. Now add it this the fact that women’s contribution to the workforce is growing rapidly, their education levels going up, family structures increasingly nuclearised makes this segment very attractive for us as marketers to tap the potential
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In Tokyo Goldman Sax put together a list of over 100 companies which were to benefit from increasing disposable income of women. In the last ten years, these companies have shown a 96% increase in the value of their shares against the market average of 13%.
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Even in this region, with the increased likelihood of women participating in the economy this is bound to have a similar impact on companies targeting women. It is in this context that it becomes imperative to understand these savvy customers better. More and more companies are commissioning research to us just only to understand woman better
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The increased participation of woman in the development of economy is a clear function of education among women in this part of the world.
If we look at what's happening in Saudi - there is a higher proportion among the younger age group who have completed secondary education. This has been the highest level achieved ever and is only going to go up further
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while they are getting educated, at home, they continue to remain a Quintessential multi-tasker who has multiple responsibilities and is performing a delicate balancing act between taking care of the children, bringing them up with same values and customs as they themselves have been, and, between meeting the demands of their husband and in-laws.
Amidst this they crave for personals space, feel that many of the current social REQUIREMENTS are too restrictive and they want to break free. we have observed three main manifestations of these social conditions among woman
ONE - Travel & Tourism : and we have seen a significant growth in the inward travel and shortly I will tell you why
Two - Retail Therapy : As an avenue for entertainment - Shoppertainment – a word coined by the Nielsen Company, has evolved as the next big thing in the Middle East
And three - we have seen a significant increase in personal grooming
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Families are also becoming smaller & people seem to be moving into flats from villas. we have observed this even in some of the other studies. In this particular instance as we can see as Saudi woman get married and start having families of their own they tend to move to individual apartments or flats.
This has impacted the decision making process where the young housewife increasingly plays a dominant role.
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So, what are they seeking… women in particular are looking at a break from abaya
- Break from household chores
- Romantic moments with husband
- New places and to and shop
And if it’s a family with slightly grown up kids the value EQuation also comes into the picture
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In the study that we recently concluded to understand Saudi and UAE consumers it clearly came out that women want to spend more and more Quality time with family and if we put that in the context of women trying to break away from household chores there definitely seems to be larger potential for travel and tourism in these countries
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In the same study, we asked women in Saudi and UAE what their preferred destination is…and we realized that a large chunk would prefer to travel within the region and to some extent Muslim countries outside the region. As you can see there is a lot of interdependence between KSA and UAE in terms of travel and tourism.
We also know there is a general decline in interest for the west.
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The reason for the decline in the interest for the west is because of the efforts taken recently and the geo-political situation is strengthening UAE’s tourism development agenda. UAE as a country is working on a multi-dimensional framework addressing consumer needs on one hand and infrastructure development on the other…which is so important in ensuring sustainable growth
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Today, globalization has made familiarization process easy for local concepts globally and global concept locally.
So you have the US Americanising and deterritorialising the middle east though the Mc Donald’s and the KFC’s but at the same time international tourism is becoming a theme for local tourism in the US
In such a scenario, it is important to understand what sources tourist tapped for obtaining information
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This is answered through an online global survey conducted by GMI and although our region was not represented one can be sure that “Recommendation” or “word of mouth” is the no.1 source for information gathering and the Internet is the 2nd most important source. This has 2 implications
One - we must ensure our visibility in this media
Two – ensure tourists have an experience that they can talk about at home
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In a service economy, end user satisfaction is critical. Also we saw earlier that ‘recommendation’ was the primary source of information. Hence tourist satisfaction should be our end goal and we must define ‘tourist-centric’ strategies
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Last year we did a small survey among Ras Al Khaimah visitors to find out what they liked and what they would like to see in future. we chose RAK because we wanted to understand what is it that RAK can do to counter competition from within and outside.
As claimed by the respondents, RAK experience was a positive one with majority of visitors taking about beaches and Quietness.
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while domestic travellers demanded improvement in access to RAK, International travellers were expecting ‘rewarding experience’.
Infact, International tourist demanded more features and also said this would help them to spend ‘more’ time in RAK
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Here are few slides that compares RAK’s Internet presence with our closest competitors – Dubai and Oman. A google search for Dubai tourism yielded 1.8 million web links
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Oman yielded slightly lesser than Dubai but impressive considering there is no massive real estate development supporting tourism
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A similar search on RAK suggests that it has one tenth of the visibility compared to its closest competitor.
Obviously on three critical parameters i.e. Infrastructure, visibility, entertainment and Shoppertainmet RAK will have some catching up to do.
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Given this background, for our region it is important to look at the evolving trends and what we see here is three distinct segments that have varying needs, but, have one common thread among them and that is the need for ‘ecotourism’
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This is a snapshot of ecotourism seeker in terms of country perceptions, demographic profile, what he/she expects and finally what could be the motivators for seeking ‘ecotourism’
READ OUT SOME OF THE MOTIVATOR PHRASES
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The three key take out for us is
- Develop infrastructure
Differentiate
Be Salient
