THE Middle East is set to position itself as the world’s leading travel hub by 2025 according to a new report sponsored by travel technology provider Amadeus.
The report, called ‘Securing the Prize for the Middle East’, aims to discover what the region should focus on to fulfill its potential as a dominant global hub and warns against complacency and the risks posed by a lack of co-ordinated pan-regional policies in regulation, investment and business operation.
The Middle East, with its geographical position, can easily be accessed by two billion people within two and a half hours by air – this number will reach seven billion by 2025.
The region has more than $4 trillion invested in travel and tourism projects with $86 billion earmarked for airport development and $7 billion for hotel projects – making the Middle East a high-potential global regional hub with much of this being fuelled by the emerging economies of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), as well as Latin America and Africa.
According to the report investment in the travel, hospitality and aviation sectors will enable the Middle East to diversify its economy with plans to expand international, intra-region and domestic tourism.
The number of visitors travelling to the region is projected to double to 136 million by 2020 compared with 54 million in 2008 and religious tourism is likely to be a major factor with Saudi Arabia generating more than $7 billion in 2009 from visitors to Muslim pilgrimage sites and projecting visitor numbers to grow from 12 million-plus in 2009 to 15 million in 2013.
The emergence of a range of low-cost carriers will support this trend and innovation and technology will also help underpin the future growth of the region.
Another key find is the need for integration and transparency. This includes the creation of a common regulatory framework across the region covering visa regulations, immigration and air control.
The findings demonstrate a need for greater financial transparency, particularly the need for the airline carriers to show their independence from government subsidy. The benefits for the major carriers to become members of global alliances or to establish a Middle Eastern-based code sharing agreement is also addressed.
“The Middle East already connects to almost every global destination via a single flight. The approach to strategic planning, ambitious investment and early technology adoption continues and the region is now poised to take an even greater competitive leap forward enabling it to lead the next wave of globalisation.
“The aim of becoming the world’s dominant travel hub by 2025 is within reach, but obstacles remain, the chief one being complacency,” said Antoine Medawar, vice president, Middle East and North Africa, Amadeus.
“From a global perspective, the stagnation of existing global hub developments necessitates the development of new ones and the Middle East would be the best choice to create them. However, while the region benefits from assets such as strategic geographical location and strong GDP growth, it will still need to work hard to attract new business and leisure travellers to the region,” commented Mona Faraj, managing partner, Insights Management Consultancy.
Commissioned by Amadeus, the study was developed by Insights Management Consultancy, a leading business consultancy headquarted in Abu Dhabi, and h2c, a specialist consultancy in hospitality marketing and distribution solutions.