The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has put up a strong case for the intra-Arab tourism promotion and greater cooperation between the Arab countries at two crucial meetings held at the Arab League headquarters in…
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has put up a strong case for the intra-Arab tourism promotion and greater cooperation between the Arab countries at two crucial meetings held at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo recently.
The UAE underscored the imperative need for further energizing the efforts to consolidate tourism in the Arab world and strategies to promote the Arab world’s tourism attractions to the outside world as well.
The UAE delegation was headed by Mr. Mohammed Khamis bin Hareb, Director Operations and Marketing, Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and Vice Chairman of UAE Executive Committee for Tourism Promotion.
The team represented the UAE at the 9th session of the Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism and the 16th meeting of the Arab Executive Tourism Committee, both held at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo from June 18th to 24th.
In his speech, Mr. bin Hareb pointed out the importance of creating better awareness about the Arab world tourism through various measures like organising workshops and conferences and devising strategies to deal with the present as well as the future. He also called for the removal of obstacles that hinders tourism growth in the Arab world.
The Arab Ministerial Council for Tourism meeting reviewed proposal to take appropriate decisions, including the formation of a task force of tourism expertis to prepare strategies for Arab world tourism as suggested at the last Arab Summit held in Khartoum.
The meeting reviewed a proposal for the Arab Tourism Excellence criteria. The DTCM made a case for itself as having the experience in eco-tourism.
It also discussed the Arab world officially sponsoring the ITB-2008 and the programmes of the Arab League representatives in Berlin. The meeting also discussed organising a tourism exhibition during the next meeting of the council.
The meeting reviewed proposal for the setting-up of a task force comprising of representatives from the UAE, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and the Arab Tourism Organisation to study the classification of hotels in the Arab world.
The meeting accorded initial approval to a proposal to select one Arab city each year as the Tourism Capital of the Arab World. The meeting welcomed the proposal of Lebanon to host the council’s next meeting in April 2007.
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