·
Singapore developing a set of common safety standards
with regional governments to allow cross-border travel
·
Saudi Arabia’s US$61 billion stimulus package
to support tourism business recovery
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 3 June 2020: Tourism
strategies to support industry recovery and the use of technology and analytics
to create resilience, took centre stage on the second afternoon of Arabian
Travel Market’s virtual event, ATM Virtual.
Gemma-Greenwood-director-content-inc.
The ‘Bouncing
back: tourism strategies for the future’ session, which took
place on Tuesday 2nd June, discussed the long-term tourism
development strategies put in place by the region’s governments to provide a
catalyst to recovery when travel patterns return to relative normality.
Fahd-Hamidaddin-chief-of-investment-strategy-and-tourism-marketing-ministry-of-tourism-saudi-arabia
The panel, which was moderated by industry
consultant Gemma
Greenwood, included Fahd
Hamidaddin, Chief of Investment, Strategy and Tourism Marketing, Ministry
of Tourism Saudi Arabia and Keith
Tan, CEO, Singapore Tourism Board.
Keith-Tan-ceo-singapore-tourism-board
“We are trying to do things at a bilateral
level with countries that we feel we can move forward with. We have announced
initiatives such as ‘green lanes’ and introduced the idea of ‘travel bubbles’.
For example, in our negotiations with China, we have agreed common standards to
permit travel and we hope to replicate this with other countries, not
dissimilar to the idea of free trade agreements,” said Tan
“We all agree that we don’t want to develop a
patchwork of different standards and requirements. But this is not going to be
easy,” he added.
Discussing the measure implemented by Saudi Arabia,
Hamidaddin highlighted the importance of the industry and the need for
government support to help the tourism industry recover.
“We look at the tourism sector from a strategic perspective
in Saudi Arabia, but we also realise that this sector contributed 20% of all
jobs in the last five years, across the world, underscoring the importance that
must be placed on the sector by governments,” said Hamidaddin.
“Our job is to help the private sector survive and weather
as much as we can during this pandemic. As such, Saudi Arabia launched a US$61
billion stimulus package that went into multiple tracks, including waiving
licensing and tourism fees as well as deferring VAT and government fees for all
SMEs, helping those most in need,” he added.
During the session, Tan outlined the importance of being
able to react quickly and develop partnerships between the public-private
sectors to address the pandemic.
"The government can't do everything. It is therefore
important to have tight public-private partnerships. As early as February, we
had announced the formation of the Tourism Recovery Action taskforce,
comprising private sector individuals and key players from within the
government.
"This was designed to layout plans, not
only for recovery, but crisis communications, how we engage with the sector,
and how we translate the advisories and directives from the health ministry to
the tourism sector. This has proven to be very effective,” said Tan.
Also addressing strategies for recovery was the
‘Catapulting
Resilience through Technology and Analytics’ session,
moderated by Lee
Hayhurst, Executive Editor of Travel Weekly.
He was joined by a panel of international
industry experts including Tony
Smyth, Senior Vice President, iFree Group; Carlos
Cendra, Chief Marketing Officer, Mabrian Technologies; Akemi
Tsunagawa, Founder & CEO, Bespoke; Robin
Ingle, CEO, Ingle International; and Gavin
Harris, Commercial Director, Skyscanner.
Each discussed the development of applications
and services addressing the varied needs due to the impact of COVID-19, such as
managing frontline medical volunteers, analysing where to find demand,
tracking, tracing, and training.
According to the global search engine,
Skyscanner, there are some early signs of green shoots in terms of search
traffic. According to the company’s most recent weekly pulse survey, which
monitors global sites, an overall improvement has been witnessed week-on-week.
Harris outlined the confidence of travellers to
fly, with 70% of Skyscanner’s global passengers feeling safe enough to travel
on an international flight in the next six months. However, when discussing
flying within a three-month time period, confidence levels fell to 24%. From a
domestic perspective, the confidence to travel on flights within a six-month
period increased to 89% and, globally, Middle East and European passengers were
the most confident overall when compared to other regions around the world.
Other sessions taking place today, the third and final day
of the debut ATM Virtual (Wednesday 3rd June), include an interview
with Wizz Air CEO, Joszef Varadi; the International
Travel Investment Conference summit and the responsible tourism
session, ‘The
Implications of COVID-19 for Responsible Hospitality’, followed by
the Influencers’ session titled ‘Make
Your Connection: Influencers as a Key Part of the Marketing Mix – COVID-19 The
Road to Recovery’. Videos of all sessions will be available on
demand – to view them, please log on to atmvirtual.eventnetworking.com/online-conference/
Concluding the event this afternoon is a
webinar titled ‘What
are you doing to energise your operational performance?’, which will
discuss the power of data analytics in helping to maximise performance.
ATM Virtual concludes
today, Wednesday 3rd June 2020, however a series of independently
moderated, roundtables are available on-demand and include
‘The Future
of Corporate Travel’ led by Breaking Travel News; The
Changing Face of Luxury Family Travel hosted by Destinations of the World News; ‘The New
Normal: What the Future Looks Like for the Hotel and Tourism Industry’ and ‘Middle
East: The New Asian Source Market’ both by Trav Talk Middle East, as well as
TTN Middle East’s ‘Challenges
Faced Today by the Travel Providers’ and ‘Latest
travel updates, projections and upcoming trends and focus on near-, mid- and
long-term travel prospects’.
