Twenty of the world’s top tour operators are being hosted by Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) as part of an intensive campaign to woo them over to the emirate.

The operators – from Italy, the USA, France, UK, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India and Australia – are on a five-day destination familiarisation tour of the emirate. Later they will join TCA leaders for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 3, said a statement from TCA Abu Dhabi.

The TCA move is part of its strategy to build the next year’s hotel guest arrivals to over the 2.8 million mark – up from this year’s expected 2.5 million.

“These are powerful decision makers within the travel and tourism sector and we want them to fully understand the sheer breadth of our expanded destination offering which has grown exponentially over the past 18 months and is now a vibrant leisure proposition for a diverse target market,” remarked Jasem Al Darmaki, the deputy director general, TCA Abu Dhabi.

The operators include Naar and Idee per Viaggiare of Italy; General Tours and Travel Holdings of the USA; Planet Veo and Directour of France; British Airways Holidays of the UK; Uniway and Wuzhouxing of China; TEZ Tour and Sodis of Russia; Al Tayyar Group and Fursan Leisure of Saudi Arabia; Trust Travels and Cutting Edge Events of India and SportsnetHolidyas and Sun Island Tours of Australia.

“We are leveraging the emirate’s headline event to demonstrate clearly to the tour operators the destination’s assets and attractions and major events credentials,” said Al Darmaki.

“We want to encourage positive word-of-mouth recommendation among these key influencers and build strong relationships going forward,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service