Sharjah National Hotels will be promoting the emirate and its hotels as family friendly at the Arabian Travel Market, according to a hotel spokesman.
The group owns three hotels in the emirate: The Hotel Holiday International, Sharjah, Marbella Resort, Sharjah and The Oceanic Hotel, Khorfakkan Beach.
“We will promote the hotels to all our key market segments, in the GCC, the Far East and Europe. Our goal is going to focus on the family,” Nasser Nassef, group director of sales and marketing for the three hotels, told TTN.
“In addition, our plan for the coming summer for Hotel Holiday International, the Oceanic Hotel Khorfokhan Beach and Marbella Resort will be offering up to 60 per cent discount for the normal rate to visitors from the GCC and Eastern and Western Europe, in conjunction with the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Department.”
Last year, the group posted occupancy levels of 90 per cent in the winter and 70 per cent in the summer, he said. “This year 2007 occupancy level will be similar to last year but average daily room rate increased by 15 per cent.”
Besides reaching out to existing source markets such as Germany, Russia, the Ukraine, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the key Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, as well as corporate clients from all over the world, he said the group would target the Far East, an emerging new source market for the region.
“The emirate of Sharjah has succeeded in marketing itself as the most Arabic tourist destination in the UAE. This success is based on a long-term tourist development strategy which was established by Sharjah Commerce, Tourism Development Authority that aims on the one hand to increase the number of tourists and revenues and on the other to maintain the Arab character of the emirates,” Nassef said, stressing that it is the authentic Arabic appeal of the emirate that attracts leisure visitors in particular.
The biggest challenges, he said, now lie in developing other segments of the tourist mix, particularly the MICE market.