FORAS Tourism, the tourism division by Foras International Investment, the investment arm of the Organisation of the Islamic Countries (OIC) has been set up to boost travel and tourism between the 57 countries that make up the OIC.
The company will be officially unveiled with the launch an integrated configurable and dynamic virtual online booking engine by September 1.
The platform will use up-to-date technology with a complex solution and easy-access system offering comprehensive, exclusive wholesale packages for hotel bookings, flights, visas, sightseeing and tickets.
Newly appointed managing director Hossam Andraous has been in the tourism industry more than 25 years and was the founder and managing partner of Total Holiday. He told TTN: “Our online booking engine will be equipped with all the facilities to sell to the OIC members. All travel components and online travel services including airline tickets, hotels, car hire, airport transfers, theatre tickets and any and all services required by travellers will be available.
“With a headquarters in Dubai, our first phase will see us focus on the top countries of the OIC, which include the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Indonesia and Malaysia.
“We will open our first office in Jeddah later this month which will focus largely on the domestic market and promote the Hajj and Umrah packages to the entire OIC market. Further there are plans to open an office in Turkey in January 2012, Cairo in September 2012 and then Malaysia in January 2013 and in China in September 2013.“
He added that the company’s main focus will be on leisure business with a wide range of products including five-, four- and three-star hotels, flight bookings and tailor-made packages catering to different markets.
“We will leave the corporate bookings to our travel agents,” said Andraous. “We are already in talks with hotel brands like Hilton, Accor, IHG and Rezidor and have received positive support from them.
“In Phase two, we will upgrade the software with XML programmes with these five hotel companies, giving us access to all their hotels worldwide through one click.”
Foras Tourism will aim to personalise services for its customers in an effort to reduce costs, time and dependency on training and highly-qualified staff.
“We offer the best negotiable rates, based on a high purchase volume, linked to the most accurate and modern technology while ensuring a completely secure online payment scheme,” he said.
Andraous stressed that training and product development is crucial and the company has spent close to six months ensuring all is well, before going live.
“So far we have invested more than $1.5 million in the software and the set-up of the Dubai office. The main investment has been towards the technology, which has been developed in-house,” he said.
“Our aim will be to encourage travel across the OIC countries, all year around. This is a market of close to 1.5 billion people across the 57 countries. We will focus on untapped segments like student-travel and encourage universities to offer students affordable packages to encourage them to travel more. We will constantly work on creating new niches like student-travel, to stay ahead of the game.
“We have already been approached by the Malaysian government to develop packages for its students to visit and explore Saudi Arabia, as well as experience Hajj” he added.
According to Andraous, the governments’ support towards Foras Tourism will always give it an edge over competitors. “We don’t want to be too ambitious, but hope to capture about 15 per cent of the market share in the first year of operation – volumes of Dh85 million ($23mn) in the first year,” he said.