FCM expands Middle East footprint into Iraq
FCM has signed a partnership agreement with Moonline Travel & Trade Ltd in Iraq, growing its Middle East & Africa footprint to almost 30 markets across the region.
According to FCM’s Managing Director of Middle East and Africa, Ciarán Kelly, this partnership is critical to FCM's local service delivery and market share growth strategies for the wider region.
“Choosing to expand FCM’s capabilities in Iraq at this time enables us to provide global coverage for existing corporate customers while meeting demand from multi-national companies requiring a true end-to-end travel experience when doing business in this growing market.
Established in 2010, Moonline Travel is regarded as one of the leading travel providers in the country.
Moonline Travel’s Managing Director, Rebin Mustafa said: "Our organisation is very proud to be the official representative of FCM in Iraq. In addition to providing excellent services for clients locally, we are also excited to play our part in helping FCM penetrate this emerging market to further grow our collective customer base across the region.”
Future Hospitality Summit returns to KSA
THE Future Hospitality Summit (FHS) event will return in a new format for its second edition from May 24 to 25, 2022 at the Riyadh Airport Marriott Hotel.
Hosted by Dur Hospitality, FHS Saudi Arabia is co-organised by The Bench and MEED, along with the Saudi-based SEMARK, and will bring together government leaders, hotel investors, owners, developers, and operators to discuss the growth of the hospitality industry in the Kingdom.
“Following the resounding success and feedback we received from FHS in 2020 and AHIC in 2021, we have been working hard behind the scenes to redesign the event and we’re thrilled to bring FHS back with not just one, but two monumental and distinct programmes this year in Riyadh in May and in Dubai in September,” said Jonathan Worsley, Chairman of The Bench.
Key conference themes will include the future of hotel development, human capital, and food & beverage as well as the future of flight, destination investment and sustainability and innovation.
HSMAI launches events in Dubai and KSA
FOLLOWING the success of the 4th annual Revenue Optimization Conference in 2021, HSMAI continues to offer industry professionals with platforms to network, share best practices, strategize and discuss upcoming trends through specially curated events in UAE & KSA.
In Dubai a ‘Thirsty Thursday’ monthly networking event was hosted recently by HSMAI and attended by prominent figures from the hospitality and travel industry. Following the success of this first edition the event will now take place on the third Thursday of every month.
HSMAI Middle East has also successfully introduced the association and launched its KSA Chapter through an inaugural ‘Power Breakfast’ in Riyadh on March 14 and Jeddah on March 16 respectively. Key benefits and the value that the association brings to the KSA market were highlighted at these events that were co-sponsored by OTA Insight.
VFS Global wins Dubai Quality Award
VFS Global, the world’s largest visa outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide, has received the prestigious Dubai Quality Appreciation Award (DQAA) in the ‘Services’ category at Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) ’s 28th Business Excellence Awards.
VFS Global was assessed as a winner based on the RADAR Assessment Excellence Model used by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and management evaluation method, which evaluates each company on nine criteria.
Zubin Karkaria, Chief Executive Officer, VFS Global Group, said, “We are honoured to have won this prestigious award for the 4th time in recognition of our consistent and continuous focus on service & process excellence and overall business excellence. Over the years we have invested significant resources in developing high quality and innovative solutions to deliver exceptional customer service experience for our client governments and our customers.”