The Sofitel Palm Resort Hotel in Dubai hosted a more successful B2B travel trade event, selling destination France in the Middle East and Turkey region, building on the success of the inaugural Marhaba France 2014.
Organised by Atout France by invitation only on May 1 and 2 earlier this year, Marhaba France is a platform for networking and scheduled meetings over two days, bringing together over 60 French suppliers and close to 120 top travel operators from all over the region: Oman, UAE, KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
Karim Mekachera, Atout France regional director for the Middle East and Turkey, talks to TTN in an exclusive interview sharing insights into the French market.
“As you would know, France had 84.7 million tourists last year. About 900,000 were from the region, we have a growth of 4 to 5 per cent every year.”
“My objective is to maintain this growth, which is not easy, because of the competitive environment. My goal is to improve the visibility of our destination, to bring new products in the market, to be more creative, look for new operators.”
“I think the equation to try to solve is better tourism versus more tourism. And I think our objective to achieve is better tourism.
“Going beyond Paris and French Riviera, which are both very popular with this market, the challenge is to bring more destinations that are being completely ignored by the travel trade such as Vichy, Bordeaux and Brittany.”
The French supplier exhibitors included sponsor region Rhone-Alpes and Lyon, together with major French winter sports resorts; top French Riviera resorts stretching from Nice and Cannes to Monaco and St Tropez; French incoming operators as key links for the Middle East travel operators; theme parks including Disneyland Paris; a wealth of top five-star hotels and palaces were present, including Paris along with the Paris Tourist Office and other cities such as Deauville in Normandy, Quiberon in Brittany, Vichy and Bordeaux and Biarritz in the South West. Some of these represent the fast developing health and wellness sector.
“It was a bold decision on our part to create our event Marahaba France and break away from Arabian Travel Market. We felt there was a need to create something very focused on France. We saw 60 partners this year, from 50 last year. At the same time, we had a lot of enquiries and many agents from the Middle East also participated this year. For the Turkish market also, we have new operators.
“We confirmed the interest of the travel trade, not just travel trade from the region but trade coming from France.