Dubai: The Arabian Travel Market (ATM) opened on Monday with leading destinations and hospitality firms setting out ambitious plans to benefit from the region's burgeoning holiday trade.
Hotel chains announced dozens of management contracts with investors, while tour organisations from 70 countries presented attractive holiday options.
Several countries from the Arab region showcased their huge tourism infrastructure developments and investment opportunities they presented.
The UAE was represented in full force with tourism promotions officials from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and other emirates. Theme parks and waterfront projects in Dubailand and on the Palms Islands hogged the limelight like previous shows.
Some 1,200 exhibitors, including airlines, tour travel firms, national tour-ism promotion agencies and hotel chains from Asia, Africa, Europe and South America are represented at the show.
Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and Chairman of Emirates Group, opened the event that ends on Friday.
He lauded ATM's success in bringing together such a huge number of key industry players in Dubai.
"I am happy to see this show grow. When we started 15 years back, it was much smaller," he told reporters after a tour of the exhibition stands.
He said tourism growth is happening across the Middle East and not just the UAE and this will continue.
Shaikh Ahmad hoped Dubai will achieve its target of attracting 15 million foreign visitors by 2015. Last year the city attracted seven million tourists.
Hotel rooms
The number of hotel rooms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi is projected to reach 180,000 by 2015, three times the number rooms at present.
The number of hotels and hotel apartments is expected to increase to 488 in three years compared with 452 in 2007.
"We are on track to move Dubai up the ladder on the global tourism map," said Khalid Bin Sulayem, DTCM director-general.
New countries taking part in this year's ATM are Djibouti, Georgia, Senegal, Nepal and the Philippines.
