Jumeirah hotels are waiting for the best: the 9th Congress of Natalie Tours and the first for most successful Ukrainian tour agencies directors will be held in UAE

Annual Congress of Natalie Tours tour operator will be held in United Arab Emirates, Dubai, on December 9-12, 2012. For the first time top management of the company will meet with general managers of the top 90 successful agencies in Ukraine to discuss joint plans and the development of cooperation with regard to the United Arab Emirates – one of the key directions for the tour operator.

The Congress held in Alqasr hotel attended by Majid Almarri DTCM Director, Hotel Classification ,Ghassan Aridi CEO Alpha Tours , Mrs. Natalia Vorobieva, General Director of Natalie Tours , Mr. Alexey Korneev, Director of Natalie Tours Ukrainian office and representatives from Fly Dubai and The General Directorate for Residency and Foreign Affairs.

Ukrainian tourism market shows a stable growth and development in provision of quality tourism products to its customers every year. Ukraine is a young independent country in Eastern Europe with rich and significant history and culture and national values. The population of the country is 45 million people as of September 1, 2012, according to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine.

Outbound tourism market in Ukraine is estimated to be of 1.5 million people per year.

The UAE is one of the fastest growing destinations of outbound tourism from Ukraine: in 2011 the country was visited by around 48 thousand Ukrainians, and already in the first half of 2012, 75 thousand people went on holiday to the UAE according to the State Border Service of Ukraine. Thus, by the end of the year a more than 2-fold increase in number of tourists is expected, indicating the increasing quality requirements for vacations – Ukrainians prefer exotic vacation with a high quality service.

Natalie Tours, the leading tour operator in CIS, is actively developing the destination since the company entered the Ukrainian market 2 years ago.

According to reports of the first year of activity, Natalie Tours reached the 1st leading position in quantity of tourists sent to the UAE, with a market share of over 35%. “We launched the UAE as mass tourism destination, having made it strategic from the very first day of our operations in Ukraine” – said Mr. Alexey Korneev, Director of Natalie Tours Ukrainian office, – “We adopted a plan to increase the number of tourists up to 44 thousand in 2012 and now expecting to fulfil this plan”.

Natalie Tours operates on this destination since 2004 and possesses leading position in professional ratings. The estimated number of tourists Natalie Tours is to set out to UAE from CIS countries this season is expected to reach about 200 thousand people.

Throughout this period, Alpha Tours, the host company in the UAE, has proved itself a reliable partner and expert in provision of recreation services. Today Alpha Tours is a leading host company in the countries of the Persian Gulf. It is worth noting that due to productive work, Alpha Tours specialists have acquired invaluable experience and knowledge, which are key to quality rest and the highest level of services provided to tourists from all around the world. Natalie Tours and Alpha Tours offer Ukrainian tourists in the UAE a complete range of tourist products: different leisure opportunities in all 7 emirates and the range of hotels for every taste – both luxury and economy accommodations , for families with children and businessmen, golf fans and SPA connoisseurs, as well as many other categories of tourists who can find preferable type of leisure in this country. Tourists are offered a variety of services – from meeting at the airport, to providing unique excursions and entertainment for every request.

Satisfying the demand for tourism in summer, in 2012 Natalie Tours was the first to make the UAE a year-around destination on the Ukrainian market. Special contribution to the acceleration of growth of Natalie Tours makes a strategic cooperation with the airline flydubai. The flight program in 2012 provides 8 flights per week from Kiev – Ukraine’s capital, and major regional cities – Donetsk and Kharkov. Natalie Tours is the sole travel partner of flydubai in Ukraine.

For 2 years of its work Natalie Tours created a partner network of more than 1500 agencies in 100 Ukrainian cities. Directors of 90 best agencies will participate in the 1st Annual Congress of Natalie Tours Ukraine. The Congress will be held at the world-famous Jumeirah Group hotels, which points out the status and importance of the meeting of Ukrainian travel market partners. Jumeirah hotels and resorts are one of the most luxurious and innovative in the world. They have repeatedly won international awards in the field of travel and tourism.

Mr. Majid AL Marri DTCM Director of Classification Department Director of Hotel Classification GAVE THANKS TO BOTH Alpha Tours and Natalie Tours for their always cooperation to increased Mrs. Natalia Vorobieva, General Director of Natalie Tours: “Working with reliable partners is our main principle, since due to considerable experience of leading companies in provision of recreation we can guarantee quality and unforgettable vacation to every tourist who goes on a journey with Natalie Tours. I would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution of our partner in the UAE – Alpha Tours. Effective cooperation, common principles of management that unite our companies and honest partnership that evolved over the years have become the key to mutually profitable work and led to steady yearly growth in number of tourists sent by Natalie Tours to the UAE resorts and contributed to fast gaining of leadership position on the Ukrainian market”.

Mr. Ghasan Aridi, CEO of Alpha Tours: «Ukrainian market is very important for UAE in general and Dubai in particular, it is a very promising market where the number of tourists will be increased year after an other.

The number of tourists from Ukraine to the world last year amounted 1.5 million travelers, he added.

He affirmed that the number of Ukrainians who visited UAE last year amounted 48 thousand travelers and this figure jumped in the first half of this year to be 75 thousand tourists.

Mr Aridi expects that this figure will witness a bigger increase in the coming years and for that reason we organize such meetings and conferences to help tour operators promote UAE and Dubai in a big scale in their market.

Majid Almarri gave a welcome speech on behalf of DTCM thanking Alpha and Natalie Tours for promoting Dubai in Ukraine , Russia and CIS market.

The number of Ukrainian hotel guests in Dubai is increasing over the last years reaching to 54 thousand and 520 guests last year with an increase of 27 % over the previous year, he said

Dubai hotel establishments, showing a 9% rise in the first nine months of 2012, played host to 7,231,670 guests against 6,641,076 over the corresponding period in 2011.

Similarly, Dubai hotel guest nights swelled by 15% to touch 27,163,974 from Jan-Sept 2012 as compared to 23,683,000 over the same period in 2011.

Also, Dubai hotel revenues recorded AED 13,083,605,000 from January to September 2012 against AED 10,964,559,000 over the same nine months in 2011, a rise of 19%.