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    Sharjah Airport Authority (SAA) is all set to participate at the ITB Berlin 2024

    Sharjah Airport Authority (SAA) is all set to participate at the ITB Berlin 2024, a global platform that brings together exhibitors, business leaders, and experts from the tourism and travel sector. The Authority will unveil the latest developments, services, and amenities offered by Sharjah Airport, highlighting its commitment to transforming airport experiences through the expansion of its technology infrastructure and comprehensive digital transformation.Under the umbrella of Sharjah Commerce & Tourism Development Authority, the SAA’s participation is part of its ongoing efforts to enhance Sharjah’s position as a thriving tourist and economic destination by establishing connections with leading international companies and expanding the network of destinations at Sharjah Airport. Through its participation at the event, SAA seeks to enhance its global presence and foster connections with the global leaders of the tourism and travel sector.
    His Excellency Ali Salim Al Midfa, Chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority, said: “During our participation at ITB Berlin 2024, we are committed to reviewing the Airport’s expansion plans, services, and facilities offered to customers. The exhibition has gained an increasing global significance, attracting a larger number of participants from 165 countries worldwide this year.”
    His Excellency added: “This premier trade exhibition offers us a platform to showcase Sharjah Airport’s recent accomplishments over the past year, which played a crucial role in enhancing the Airport’s capacity to meet the increasing travel needs at Sharjah Airport. During the event, we will also highlight the improvements made in the infrastructure of digital services and the amenities offered to passengers.”
    This year, Sharjah Airport Travel Agency (SATA) – a one-stop-shop for airline reservations, customised holiday packages, cruises, hotel reservations and global visa services, and one of the UAE’s fastest growing travel agencies – will participate at ITB Berlin. The agency aims to strengthen its communication channels with international companies and explore new prospects of collaboration through its participation at the global exhibition.
    SAA’s annual participation in the ITB Berlin is an integral part of its international agenda. This year, its participation holds special significance due to the commencement of the passenger terminal expansion project. Additionally, Sharjah Airport has achieved its highest performance to date, having welcomed over 15.3 million passengers in 2023.ADVERTISEMENT

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    IAPCO’s 54th Annual Meeting in Ljubljana: Fostering Innovation and Sustainability

    From February 28th to March 2nd, 2024, the 54th annual meeting and general assembly of the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO) is taking place in Ljubljana. Around 160 directors and owners of congress agencies from around the world are attending. The local organizer of the event is Cankarjev dom, which has been a member of the IAPCO association since 1980, with the support of Ljubljana Tourism, the Slovenian Tourist Board, and other partners.
    IAPCO is a non-profit association and the only international accreditation organization for professional congress organizers. The association’s mission is to raise service standards among its members and other stakeholders in the meetings industry through continuous education, collaboration with various experts, research, and data measurement. IAPCO brings together 138 accredited congress organizing companies in 40 countries. Membership, which is attainable through high-level services, is maintained through annual reviews and evaluations by the IAPCO Quality Committee.
    IAPCO unites the largest global players in the meetings industry. According to data (published by IAPCO on March 30, 2023), in 2023, IAPCO members collectively organized 7,722 events and plan to host an additional 7,729 events over the next three years (until 2026). Among these, 1,943 events have yet to select a destination, and organizers are still seeking venues for 3,542 events. Therefore, the assembly and annual meetings are of significant importance to the local economy and tourism, which hope to attract foreign professional congress organizers to return to the destination with international events.
    The meetings industry is one of the main products of Slovenian tourism, known for its high added value and numerous multiplier effects. The total spending by congress guests is at least 3.5 times that of conventional tourists. It contributes to the dispersion of tourist flows, destimulation, and sustainable development of Slovenian tourism.
    The theme of this year’s event is “Be the Flow”, which calls for action and inspires innovation in the rapidly changing meetings industry towards sustainability. IAPCO Ljubljana 2024 focuses on reducing the environmental impact of meetings and promoting sustainability. The goal of the IAPCO association is for meetings to become more environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and aligned with the goals of sustainable development. At IAPCO 2024 in Ljubljana, the carbon footprint of the event will be measured for the first time, marking a milestone and opportunity for all future IAPCO meetings.ADVERTISEMENTThe IAPCO conference represents a strategic starting point for Slovenia, Ljubljana, and Cankarjev dom, a long-standing member of the IAPCO association, to further successfully attract international scientific and professional meetings in the future.

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    Ahead of ITB Berlin, Civitatis highlights +30% portfolio growth in Germany since 2019

    Civitatis, the leading technological platform for booking Spanish-speaking activities, day trips, guided tours, and excursions worldwide – both in the B2C and B2B channels – proudly announces significant growth in its portfolio in Germany over the past few years. From 2019 to 2023 the company’s portfolio of tours & experiences products in Germany has experienced an impressive increase of over 30%, showcasing its commitment to providing diverse and engaging experiences for Spanish speakers wherever they visit in the world.
    The global pandemic posed challenges for the travel industry, but despite these hurdles Civitatis managed to thrive still. As of today Civitatis boasts a robust presence in the German market, featuring 256 different activities available and 48 destinations across the country for Spanish speakers using the web platform.
    The commitment to diversity is further highlighted by the popularity of the Top 5 activities in Germany:
    Free tour of Berlin (27% of total reservations in Germany)Free tour of Munich (13% of total reservations in Germany)Free tour of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Free tour of Hamburg
    Enrique Espinel, COO at Civitatis, expressed enthusiasm about the company’s growth in the German market, stating: “We are excited to share our success story as we continue to grow our portfolio in Germany, which is now one of our most important destinations. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, our team has worked tirelessly to offer an extensive range of activities and destinations for Spanish speaking travellers visiting German cities and rural sights.”ADVERTISEMENTITB Berlin, one of the industry’s premier events, will take place at Messe Berlin from 4-7 March and the Civitatis team will be attending to connect with industry professionals, partners, and potential collaborators.

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    INVEST SAUDI GEARS UP FOR HIGH LEVEL DISCUSSIONS AND DEAL MAKING WITH ‘SAUDI TALKS’ AT MIPIM 2024

    Invest Saudi is gearing up for three days of high level discussions, networking, and deal making with Saudi Talks, a series of panel discussions and exclusive presentations from leading Saudi government and industry figures, at MIPIM 2024. Led by the Ministry of Investment, Saudi Talks brings together more than 20 high-level speakers for relating to Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented real estate growth, infrastructure expansion and investment opportunities. Speakers will be from the Ministry of Investment, NEOM, Diriyah, New Murabba, Riyadh region, Public Investment Fund (PIF), King Salman Park Foundation and Knight Frank.
    Saudi Arabia currently has more than US$1.8 trillion worth of developments under construction or in the pipeline, with demand for real estate in the Kingdom set to reach record levels as the country realizes Vision 2030. 
    Visit Invest Saudi at MIPIM to discover more about the Ministry of Culture, NEOM, THE LINE, Trojena, Roshn, New Murabba Development Company, Diriyah Company, King Salman Park, Ha’il Region Development Authority, Riyadh Region Municipality and AE7.
    Invest Saudi at MIPIM: pavilions C14b, C15a and C20 at MIPIM, 12-15 March 2024.

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    Bartlett Renews Call for Special Tip to Finance Global Tourism Resilience Fund

    Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett gesticulates as he renews his call for a special tip to fund tourism resilience initiatives, as he addressed the 2nd Global Tourism Resilience Day Conference, which was held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from February 16-17, 2024.
    Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett has renewed his call for visitors across the world to be asked to support the financing of tourism resilience initiatives via a special tip. While urging the international community to urgently unite to establish a Global Tourism Resilience Fund, Minister Bartlett outlined that “the money collected in each destination from this tip would contribute to the fund and aid in boosting tourism resilience.”Funding tourism resilience was one of the pressing issues explored at the just concluded 2nd Global Tourism Resilience Day Conference, which was held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre from February 16-17. With an international panel of experts, the discussion focused on how international organizations create and execute tourism resilience financing strategies.
    Leading off the deliberations, Minister Bartlett said tourism offered investment opportunities for all interest groups “but the more important point that we want to focus on is investment in resilience; how do you present to a destination the resources necessary to enable them to be able to forecast and track disruptions, how to mitigate against it, how to manage, recover and recover quickly and how to thrive.”
    “Investment in these areas is not necessarily sexy,” Minister Bartlett added as their return on investment was not easily measured. However, he said: “We are going to build capacity in this area; we’re going to be training people, educating, building structures to enable the education of people to do these things and the building of tools to be able to manage and overcome these pressures.”
    Having closely examined the question of where the funding is to come from, Minister Bartlett pointed to the fact that some 1.5 billion visitors traversed the world in 2019 and “it is expected that in the next 25 years from now, 1.5 billion more people will traverse the world.”
    Faced with the questions of where those 3 billion people will be coming from and where they will be going, he said this raised the issue of personal responsibility on the part of visitors for resilience building. Stressing that tourism is arguably the most consumer-driven activity on Earth, Minister Bartlett said: “If we were to say to each visitor who travels, leave a resilience tip behind at every point of consumption, consider what 1.5 billion visitors leaving a tip at every point of consumption, with their propensity to consume, could do to individual destinations.”ADVERTISEMENTHe explained that the money left in each destination from this tip would be unfettered by the bureaucracy that often comes with multi-national engagements and the difficulty of navigating those processes as well as challenges faced in defining which countries or entities would be able to access these funds.
    “It’s an opportunity for us to think through, and perhaps something that the UN Tourism Secretary-General might want to look at” Minister Bartlett noted. “One hundred and fifty countries are involved here and so we can broaden the scope of available resources for resilience funding and sustainability by making a personal commitment for each tourist travelling across the world, in terms of the consumption pattern and carbon footprint that flows from those consumption patterns and to create a fund that may very well be the answer for building capacity for mitigation, adaptation and the building of human capacity,” said Minister Bartlett.

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    IATA Chief Reflects on Aviation’s Past, Present, and Future at Industry Event

    Minister Chee, honorable ministers, Salvatore Sciacchitano, Directors General, friends, and honorable guests. It is a great pleasure to be here and I want to add my thanks to all of those involved in organizing this wonderful event.
    It was said at the panel discussion last night that to better understand the future, it’s good to understand the past and the present. And I fully agree with that. Now, I don’t intend to reflect too much on the period of the pandemic. But I just want to give you some flavor for what has happened to the industry in 2023, to look back at the shape of the industry over the past few decades, and then to maybe draw some conclusions as to what we think might happen going forward.
    I’m pleased to say that the progress and recovery of the industry continued strongly during 2023. Full year 2023 was at just over 94% of where we were in 2019. And that consisted of very strong performance in domestic markets, almost 4% ahead of 2019, with international markets lagging at just over 88%.
    Now if we look at this region, the situation was slightly less than that, overall at 86% of where the region was in 2019. The strong performance in domestic markets over 2% ahead, but international travel in the region still lagged behind at about 73% of 2019. It is important to point out that there was a strong recovery as we went through the year, moving from about 57% in January to almost 83% in December.
    Looking forward, IATA estimates that over the next 20 years, the industry will grow at about 3.3% per annum. That is significantly lower than the growth we witnessed during 2010 to 2019. But I think it does reflect some of the challenges that we as an industry are facing and will face going into the future. Infrastructure constraints both in the air and on the ground. Supply chain issues which have now been a feature of the industry for a number of years and are likely to continue for a few more years. The delay and delivery of new aircraft, the problems in relation to engines, labour shortages in some parts of the world, and significantly the cost impact of our transition to net zero in 2050.ADVERTISEMENTBecause whatever way you look at this, there will be a cost associated with transitioning to net zero. And ultimately, that costs will have to be reflected in the ticket prices that we charge our customers, which will have a dampening effect on the level of growth that the industry sees going forward.
    Now I’m pleased to say this region is likely to lead the markets with growth around 4.5% per annum during that same period.
    Now, if I reflect back at 1990, and I’ve chosen 1990 for a couple of reasons. It recognizes that we had the introduction of the Boeing 737-300, 400 and 500s in the mid 80s, and the Airbus A320 in the late 1980s. It also reflects a fully deregulated market in the US, and a deregulated market in Europe. And it’s fascinating to look at the shape of the industry in that year.
    At IATA, we look at six major geographic regions when we’re assessing our economic performance, and we report on these on a monthly basis. That’s Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and North America. In 1990, African airlines contributed 2.2% of global aviation.  Asia-Pacific carriers were 19.7%, Europe 28%, Latin America and Caribbean 5.4%, Middle East carriers 2.4% and a lot has been written about what has happened in the Middle East. But significantly North American carriers 42% of the global markets.
    Now if we roll forward and look at 2019, Africa continued to be at 2.1%. But we saw significant growth in the Asia-Pacific region, reaching almost 35% of the global market in 2019. Europe remained pretty static at 27%, Latin America 5%, the Middle East has grown from 2.4% to 9.1%, and North American carriers had reduced from 42% to just over 22%.
    The figures for 2023 are broadly similar. Asia Pacific, reflecting the fact that the recovery has been slightly slower in international markets at about 32%.
    Now, it’s interesting also to reflect on the fact that if I look at the major domestic markets, the domestic market in China in 1990 was just over 1% of all global activity, and India about 0.2%. Looking forward at 2023, the Chinese domestic market now represents over 11%, of total commercial aviation, and India has grown to almost 1.8%. We’ve seen significant growth in these markets in that period. And I think when you look at the demographics of the world, it doesn’t take much to imagine what is going to happen in these countries going forward, particularly in India, which I think represents a fantastic opportunity for the industry.
    I think it is disappointing for us to reflect on the fact that Africa remains in the doldrums at just over 2%. I think the potential for growth in Africa is huge. But there has to be change to enable consumers in the African region to take advantage of the opportunities that aviation provides.
    We also looked at major route groups. The top 20 route groups account for about 95% of all international travel. I’m not going to go through them all but just to reflect that in 2019, before the pandemic, the Asia-Pacific region was at number two, with 13.3%. The biggest international market was Western Europe. International travel within Europe at 18%, and Europe to North America represented 11.4%.
    In 2023, and this demonstrates why we’ve seen a lag in the recovery in Asia-Pacific, international travel within the Asia-Pacific region had fallen to 9.7%. So, this is a huge opportunity for continuing recovery in the market here and I’m excited about what things are going to look like in the years ahead.
    Now, a lot has been said about the challenges we face. And some of these will be discussed in the panel. But I just want to comment briefly on the environment.
    This industry is absolutely committed to achieving net zero CO2 in 2050. And we cannot fail or falter in our efforts to achieve that goal. It is absolutely essential that we work together to ensure that we can credibly provide people with confidence that we have a pathway to decarbonize our industry. And I think we can take a lot of confidence from what we’ve achieved already. And we’ve talked about this in many different forums.
    But just to give you one figure. If you look at the CO2 produced by the industry in 2000, and compare that to what we did in 2019 just before the pandemic, our CO2 footprint increased by almost 54%. But during that same period, passenger traffic grew by 175%. So, there is complete disconnect between passenger growth and our C02 growth. So, we know that we can be confident that with the measures we’ve put in place, with the advances in new technology, there are opportunities for us to address this critical issue. But as the Minister said, central to achieving our goal will be the use of sustainable aviation fuel. For us, this is the most important issue in the short to medium term.
    Now I believe the industry has shown strong demand for this product. Every single drop of sustainable aviation fuel that has been produced has been used by the industry. In 2020, 2021, 2022, during the height of the pandemic, the industry continued to invest in this expensive product. And I’ve absolutely no doubt that we will continue to do so. What we need to see as an industry is greater production. We need to see governments providing the incentive for production to significantly increase. And with that increase in production, I guarantee you that the airlines will use all of the fuel produced despite the cost impact that will represent.
    Technology, labour issues, all of these are fascinating opportunities for the industry going forward. But as I stand and look at the future of this industry, I’m very confident that we can overcome all of the challenges that we’re likely to face. We can take confidence in our ability to overcome some significant challenges in recent times. And working together, with the right policy frameworks in place from governments, the industry has a very credible path to achieving all of the necessary measures to ensure that we are net zero in 2050.
    Thank you very much.

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    KSA companies tap into new markets and reach global investors with launch of MIPIM Saudi Club

    Businesses in Saudi Arabia can attend MIPIM – the world’s biggest, most influential real estate event – at special rates, with exclusive benefits through the MIPIM Saudi Club, a new, independent platform designed to foster networking, learning, partnerships and collaborations between KSA and international companies.MIPIM Saudi Club enables KSA entities to tap into new markets and reach tens of thousands of global investors and decision makers at the event, taking place in Cannes, France, 12-15 March 2024.The brainchild of a group of seasoned, KSA and UAE-based business, events and communications professionals, MIPIM Saudi Club further bridges the gap between Saudi and global businesses, in turn encouraging more foreign direct investment into the country, by making MIPIM more affordable and more accessible. A MIPIM Saudi Club pass costs SAR8,500, which includes full event access, affiliate listing as part of KSA’s overall presence at MIPIM, dedicated meeting spaces, top-flight catering services, increased brand awareness and listing on MIPIM Saudi Club’s official channels. Passes are available until 28 February. MIPIM Saudi Club Co-Founder, Laura Martin, said: “MIPIM is the world’s leading event of its kind, bringing together more than 25,000 delegates, 6,500 investors and 300 exhibitors from 90 countries. With KSA’s unprecedented investment in infrastructure, real estate, tourism and hospitality, MIPIM is a golden opportunity for Saudi companies to get in front of the investors, decision makers and partners who can help turn Vision 2030 into a reality. “MIPIM Saudi Club unites our long-standing experience of working with companies in the Kingdom and wider Middle East with our extensive knowledge of the workings of MIPIM and many other leading global business events. We are proud be part of KSA’s future success by bringing this unique opportunity to Saudi businesses large and small.”For the third year in a row, KSA government entities, developers and projects are exhibiting at MIPIM under the Invest Saudi umbrella. Through the MIPIM Saudi Club, any company in the Kingdom can attend as a visitor or exhibitor. For information and updates, follow MIPIM Saudi Club on LinkedIn or email [email protected]

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    Little Gems by My Second Home stages weekend Valentine’s party exclusively for small dogs

    My Second Home, Dubai’s first and largest luxury pet resort, is inviting owners of small dogs to celebrate the month of love at a Valentine’s party for pets, taking place this weekend at Little Gems. Bring your petite pooch along to Little Gems, My Second Home’s newly opened facility exclusively for small dogs, for Valentine’s themed events, including prize competitions and photo opportunities. Open to both members and non-members, the event takes place from 4pm to 6 pm on Saturday, 17 and Sunday, 18 February. Saturday’s Valentine’s ‘pawty’ is for miniature breed weighing less than five kilogrammes, with dogs weighing up to 10 kg welcome on Sunday. Dress to impress for Little Gems’ Cupid Cutest Canine Contest, with prizes for the best owner-dog Valentine’s outfits. Plus, pucker up at the Smooch-A-Pooch photo booth and take away a Valentine’s pic to treasure forever. To book your spot, WhatsApp 054 247 1945, or email [email protected]Non-members must show their dog’s up-to-date vaccination record and a successful VacciCheck test on arrival. Little Gems, opened in December as part of My Second Home’s US$10 million expansion. With three facilities across Dubai and over 220 members, My Second Home offers unrivalled dog park, day care, boarding and pet grooming services, with a fully trained team on board to ensure pets are socialised in clean, safe surroundings. For more information on My Second Home, visit the website, email [email protected] or call 04 881 8002. 

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