CHRISTOPHE Landais, managing director, Accor Middle East, was among those on the advisory board which was instrumental in developing the topics and issues to be discussed at AHIC 2008.
He found that the biggest challenges facing new entrants to the Arabian market were to establish a real differentiation not only adding new brands but more essentially by offering new concepts and new segmentations.
He said that in order to attract foreign involvement, investment in infrastructure was fundamental, along with the creation of tourism boards in other countries in which to promote Arabian tourism.
Evolution on the land ownership regulation and on the multi ownership and condo properties in certain countries was important, as too was encouraging sophisticated credit and financial arrangements.
“Still efforts have to be pursued along this line in order to reach more liquidity on the land and secure ownership for foreign investors, not only on free zones, if we want to have a real incentive for large foreign investors to look at the Arabian countries.”