TOURISM in Fujairah has long been underplayed in comparison to her more glamorous neighbours.
However officials are now working hard to redefine the emirate’s tourism potential with the newly established Fujairah Tourism and Antiquities Authority (FTAA) aiming to grow the infrastructure and tourism potential as well as attracting investors
Patrick Antaki, general manager of Le Méridien Al Aqah, is also an FTAA board member and strongly believes Fujairah’s reputation as a tourism hub is set to boom.
“The authority plans to set-up the back-bone for Fujairah’s touristic future, continue competing and positioning Fujairah internationally and, very importantly, upgrade our offerings for national tourism. Fujairah does hold the largest number of antiquities in the country and it’s the authority’s responsibility to promote these to the world,” said Antaki.
The emirate has several new hotel projects in the pipeline too and Antaki believes additional demand has to be generated by the new players. “As long as the airlines can offer more inbound capacity, Fujairah has attractive offers and the players aggressively market the destination, we can’t lose,” he said. “New projects will also see three- and four-star hotels opening, the Premier Inn being one of them. There are also plans for a village-style resort coming up.”
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Antaki...attracting visitors |
Looking back over 2009 and 2010 and the financial crisis, Antaki said: “I wish the emirate wasn’t affected but then I suppose we’d be living in Utopia. Like all other destinations, we were affected to the tune of 35 per cent-ish. However, it seems that we’ve managed to increase the destination’s attraction and reputation, batting with the increase in hotel room supply in the region.”
He added that the last quarter of 2010 saw positive results at hotels across the emirate and is an indication of business potential for this year.
Currently key source markets are Germany, Russia, the UK and UAE residents (both nationals and expats), who visit the emirate during the weekends.
Fujairah as a destination has much to offer. An emirate rich in history and culture, its status as one of the best destinations for diving, fishing and water sports as well as easy access to Dubai and value-for-money make it an interesting option for international holidaymakers.
“Our core products, sun and sand, will always remain the same, with some additions and improvements to continually attract the holiday maker and keep the destination active and interesting. The emirate has several projects in the pipeline including a museum, a marina, a shopping mall and hopefully a water park and golf course,” said Antaki.
But he pointed out that in order to increase visitors into the hotels, individual properties must try to attract top agents to the region by making the offerings interesting and aggressively better than others, without reducing the yield to a point that can’t be recovered.
“Joint promotions are an interesting concept that is actively being pursued at the moment. But first we have to educate people about the emirate, its accessibility and varied offerings. That will be our biggest challenge,” he said.