Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) highlighted Dubai’s growing popularity as a global cruise destination viable for pre-cruise and post-cruise stopovers and an apt homeport in the region at the Seatrade Cruise Global in Florida, USA, a leading event for the cruise industry. Dubai Tourism exhibited under the Cruise Arabia banner, bringing together the tourism authorities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain on a unified stand with the goal of promoting the region as a whole, and improving business sustainability and development.
The 3-day event also saw successful networking and business opportunities with leading brands in the global cruise industry, including world-class cruise lines, to discuss deployments and homeporting opportunities in Dubai to heighten the awareness of the destination’s cruise offerings to a global audience across Spain, Brazil, UK, USA, in addition to the traditional source markets across Germany, Italy, France and over 40 other countries.
ATM to debut exclusive student programme to promote opportunities for ‘tomorrow’s’ travel professionals and hoteliers
Tourism employment in the UAE expected to grow to 394,000 by 2026 and 781,000 by 2027 in Saudi Arabia
Reed Travel Exhibitions, organiser of the annual Arabian Travel Market (ATM) showcase in Dubai, which will take place at the Dubai World Trade Centre from 22-25 April 2018, has announced that it will host the first ATM Student Conference – Career in Travel – as part of its line-up of special focus events.
The two-hour conference, scheduled to take place on Wednesday 25th April in the Showcase Theatre, will feature three interactive seminar sessions including, how to gain a career in the industry; developing tourism skills and employment opportunities in travel & tourism; and how to create a job in the travel and tourism industry.
The travel and tourism sector will continue to play a vital role in the UAE’s economy, with the number of people employed in the industry to increase from 317,300 in 2016 to 394,000 in 2026, according to a World Travel and Tourism Council report. An increase in new retail, leisure and entertainment offerings will drive this growth over the next eight years.
Following recent reforms and the relaxation of visa regulations, Saudi Arabia is poised to capitalise on these factors as it nurtures a vibrant leisure and entertainment sector, supported by a new generation of hotels. In 2017, travel and tourism generated 613,000 jobs in the Kingdom with this figure expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.5% to 781,000 by 2027.
Simon Press, Senior Exhibition Director, ATM said: “Career in Travel has been an integral part of WTM London for the last ten years. Following this success, we are proud to introduce the exclusive student conference to ATM 2018. Designed to increase student and graduate opportunities within the travel and tourism sector, the complimentary programme will allow attendees to learn from the sharpest minds in the industry.”
“A line-up of key travel experts will share their invaluable knowledge of the sector, as well as their individual career experiences, while providing advice on how to launch a career in the travel and tourism industry.
Kick-starting discussions in the Showcase Theatre, a specialist panel featuring Alessandro Cabella, General Manager, Jumeirah Group and Abdo Basmaji, Travel Counsellor, will explore how to secure a career in the travel and tourism industry. Panellists will share their experiences while offering advice on the current job market in the region.
The second panel, made up of educators, trainers and employers, will focus on training the next generation of travel, tourism and hospitality graduates and professionals. This session will be moderated by Chris Warren, International Director for Responsible Tourism – Australia and the Middle East, who will be joined by a host of key industry experts.
Wrapping up the inaugural conference, the third and final panel session will explore how to create your own job in the travel and tourism industry. Hear from Rana Dababneh, founder, Pomalo travel and tourism and Heba Bin Redha, Co-founder of Emirati Kashtas on their experiences and how they went about setting up on their own.
Press added: “The student conference is a great addition to ATM 2018 and we look forward to welcoming the current crop of travel and tourism students to these important sessions, which we hope will equip them with the skills they need to thrive going forward.”
ATM – considered by industry professionals as a barometer for the Middle East and North Africa tourism sector, welcomed over 39,000 people to its 2017 event, including 2,661 exhibiting companies, signing business deals worth more than $2.5 billion over the four days.
Celebrating its 25th year, ATM 2018 will build on the success of this year’s edition, with a host of seminar sessions looking back over the last 25 years and how the hospitality industry in the MENA region is expected to shape up over the next 25.
To register to attend the ATM student conference ‘Career in Travel’, visit http://arabiantravelmarket.wtm.com/en/visit/Register/
ByHours.com allows you to book hotel rooms in 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 hour packs, and decide your hotel check-in and check-out time. Moreover, ByHours.com sells meeting rooms by packs of 2, 4 and 8 hours, to increase their revenue and offer the customer a flexible product. ByHours.com is introducing the pay-per-use model in hotel industry.
Founded in March 2012 in Barcelona, ByHours.com is one of the startups of the year in Spain. It is the winner of several awards for being an innovative project that has introduced a new business model in the tourism sector, and for its growth, as in just 2 years there are already 28 people working in its offices.
ByHours.com is an on-line platform and is also a mobile application, which allows the customer to choose their hotel check-in and check-out time, and book the hours they need, in packs of 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours. On one hand, it offers the customer flexibility and payment according to use, so that they can book a hotel only for the time they need it, always based on fair Price. On the other hand, it allows hotel operators to make their rooms more profitable, as they can sell them more than once per day, and this increase their RevPAR.
ByHours.com is already working with over 600 hotels all over Spain from the best national and international hotel chains, such as H10, Eurostars or Meliá. Now, having consolidated the business model in Spain, it will open its way into internationalization and will operate in the UK, Germany, and Italy within the first and the second quarter of 2014. Actually, ByHours.com is operating in London, with 10 own recruited hotels.
In this internationalization stage, ByHours.com has added experience and talent to its team, and included a new signing: Amine Saoudi, former CFO from Splendia.com, who has a great career path in opening new markets.
ByHours.com is intended for all those situations where a hotel is only needed for a few hours, and so it offers hotels near train stations, ports, and airports, in order to avoid waiting; hotels near congress centers, urban centers, and highway rest areas; and also hotels near hospitals for all patients or accompanying persons needing a few hotel hours in order to rest, but without moving too far off from the health center.
In relation to daily hotel operations, ByHours.com provides an internal tool that allows them to decide the price, hour packs, and check-in hours they want to sell, as well as connect with their PMS-Channel Manager, to make management easier and faster. The hotel operator decides at all times what they want to sell, how, and at what price, and ByHours.com receives a direct commission from the hotel operator, as the customer always pays at the hotel.
The key to ByHours.com resides in that it is not only a site aimed at the final client, but also aimed at B2B. Thus, it has three business lines: Travel, Healthcare, and Leisure. These business lines allow us to work with important partners from different sectors, with ByHours.com being the only hotel accommodation-by-hours distributor. ByHours.com offers integration tools, such as for example White labels, which are completely customizable, allowing each partner to design its hotelby-hours search engine with their corporate image, and offer their customers an added value and a complementary product.
In the travel line, ByHours.com is working with the number 1 in online flight sales, the Odigeo Group. eDreams is already selling hotel rooms by hours in Spain on its website. It is a very ambitious agreement that upon internationalization, it will let us work with other Odigeo brands: Opodo, Travellink, and GoVoyages.
In this business line, ByHours.com also works with major industry leaders such as Pullmantur, Viajes Carrefour, or Grupo Areas. Within its Healthcare line, ByHours.com is working with hospitals all over Spain, which already offer accommodation by hours at their centers; this is also a product very much targeted towards health tourism. ByHours Healthcare also works with major insurance companies, which offer this service in their policies.
Finally, the Leisure line is designed to complement leisure situations, and therefore ByHours.com works with ticketing companies, and also in different actions with nightclubs, theaters, movie theaters, or special events, in order to offer a different and complementary service.
ByHours.com Mobile app
The ByHours.com app, which is free and available for Android and iOS, is the only one that offers the user the ability to book hotels in major hotel chains in the country, in packs of 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours, and decide the hotel check-in and check-out time. In addition, thanks to its geolocation system, the app lets us find the closest hotels to the point where the user is, and book in 3 easy steps: decide the city, hour pack, and chosen hotel check-in time. All this, in order to offer flexible bookings to the user:
Saudi Arabia – An exclusive report by TOPHOTELPROJECTS for The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia 2018 has identified Swiss-Belhotel International among the top ten most active brands in the Kingdom. The group currently has five projects featuring over 1200 rooms under development in KSA.
Laurent A. Voivenel, Senior Vice President, Operations and Development for the Middle East, Africa and India for Swiss-Belhotel International, said, “KSA is a very significant market for us with 35% of our development pipeline concentrated in the Kingdom. Out of the six hotels opening this year, three are located in Saudi Arabia. Two of these will be in the capital city of Riyadh i.e. Swiss-Belboutique Tahlia Riyadh, a deluxe 4-star hotel featuring 60 rooms and Swiss-Belhotel Riyadh, a 4-star hotel featuring 112 rooms. Both hotels are owned by Jumaiah Group. In addition, we will be making our debut in the second half of 2018 into the Holy city of Makkah with Swiss-Belhotel Al Aziziya Makkah. Featuring 525 rooms, the upscale 4-star property is owned by Cardamom International Property Management LLC and is superbly located in the rapidly expanding hotel hub of Makkah only a few minutes’ drive away from Al-Masjid Al-Haram in Al Aziziya”.
Saudi hospitality sector is set to grow at 13.5% CAGR per annum up to 2022. Widespread investment in the Kingdom’s tourism and infrastructure sector in pursuit of attracting 30 million visitors annually by 2030 is driving demand for quality accommodation. With 40,020 keys in 89 projects, the country at the moment has the most hotel rooms under construction in the Middle East and North Africa.
Laurent stressed, “Saudi Arabia is a market that is currently under supplied in terms of hotels and is, therefore, projected to show strong growth over the next few years and we are extremely keen to take advantage of this massive opportunity. Our expansion in Saudi Arabia, like the rest of the region, demonstrates the confidence of owners in the strength of our brands. At Swiss-Belhotel International, with 14 well-established brands, we are well equipped to meet the needs of every segment of Saudi hotel sector. We believe our upcoming hotels will add tremendous value to our growing presence in the country”.
Swiss-Belhotel International will be present at Arabian Travel Market from 22 to 25 April on stand ‘HC1130’ in Sheikh Saeed Hall in Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Indulge in a luxury spa, with treatment rooms, therapeutic pools, a steam room, hammam and outdoor cabanas for massages. Renew your body and revive your mind with SoSPA’s French-Polynesian charm. Allow SoSPA’s skilled therapists to transport you to a world of relaxation and ensure deep therapeutic experiences.
With 28 treatment rooms and private outdoor cabanas for couples, SoSPA offers personalised spa experiences combining Polynesian traditions with high-quality beauty products by Voya and NUXE. There are two separate areas for men and women.
Candles, natural light and the subtle scent of lavender create an instantly relaxing feel at SoSPA. Choose from a wide range of treatments, from Thai and Aryuvedic massages to Vichy showers.
Open daily from 09.00am to 09.00pm*Phone: +971 44 55 54 33 or 54 34Email: so-spa.palmdubai@sofitel.com
Dahlia Spa at Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi has scooped a world-class award.
The winners of the 2018 World Spa & Wellness Awards were announced in a glamorous awards ceremony in London on February 25. The World Spa & Wellness Awards, a black-tie event held at the Tobacco Dock events venue in East London, honours hotels and resort spas, and wellness destinations, around the world.
The 2018 World Spa & Wellness Awards from our region were:
Resort Spa of the Year: Middle East & Africa – Sponsored by Elemis Hilltop Spa at Four Seasons Resort Seychelles
Hotel Spa of the Year: Middle East & Africa – Sponsored by Spatec Dahlia Spa at Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island, UAE
“On April 2nd we hosted our 7th Career Clinic on the closing day of the Islamic Fashion & Design Council’s Pret-a-Cover Buyers Lane event, which took place over six days at the immaculate City Walk Dubai. We joined forces with the IFDC to bring together a panel knowledgable and influential women to discuss all things fashion in the region, including representatives from Harper’s Bazaar and The College of Fashion Design Dubai.
Galeries Lafayette Le Gourmet hosted our morning upstairs in their stunning‘Table Talk’ venue – a culinary school turned perfect event space. The session opened and was led by our guest moderator Rabia Zargarpur, world class fashion entrepreneur, designer and creator of the Modest Fashion concept, who introduced our panel of speakers: Safiya Abdalla, fashion designer of Dulce by Safiya; Emily Baxter Deputy Editor of Harper’s Bazaar Arabia and Dr Monica Gallant, President and CEO of the College of Fashion Design Dubai.
Each of our speakers answered a curated selection of questions ranging from starting up your own label and fashion business, to education, design, and working for the big industry game players. Emily shared her story and experience in having worked for over 10 years for leading fashion magazines, while Monica emphasised the importance of education and refining the necessary skills it takes for a fashion entrepreneur to get started. Safiya shared her own story and struggles with starting up a one-woman run business from the bottom up, whilst juggling motherhood to three young children and expat life in Dubai.
Other important areas addressed were the impact social media and influencer marketing has had and how one manages to keep their brand and image on social as authentic as possible, whilst overcoming some of the fashion misconceptions in the region.
Fashion has definitely seen a major shift in the GCC over the last few years, moving away from being known as purely high end ‘fashion consumers’ to giving rise to some of the industry’s fashion game changers. Rabia Zargarpur is an example of such, becoming one of the first designers to showcase Modest Fashion ready-to-wear looks on mainstream runways and fashion shows.
A stand out take home message for all our guests would have to be that no designer ‘made it’ straight out of fashion school; brands like Tom Ford and Valentino all began at the bottom, working for others and building their story, and did not become successful overnight. The other key message was that there is no such thing as perfection – trial and error are key in all aspects of career and life, and if you don’t try you’ll never know!
The panel wrapped up at 11am and all guests enjoyed an hour long opportunity to network with each other and the speakers after the talk, with business cards and contacts exchanged at all levels. As always, the energy that built in the room was infectious and the advice shared invaluable.”
Our next Career Clinic will be held in collaboration with Mompreneurs ME at Life N One, Jumeirah, on April 23rd. To register your interest, email us at events@hopscotch.ae.
Gabrielle Chanel’s ambition was to allow women’s bodies a sense of freedom. When she set out to create the 2.55 handbag in February 1955, a date which lent its name to the visionary accessory, she came up with a deliberately practical design, worn across the body like a hunter’s or soldier’s bag. Years later, Karl Lagerfeld conjured up the Classic bag, inspired by the 2.55. It adds CHANEL’s emblematic double C to the clasp and entwines leather into the chain strap.
For Spring‑Summer 2018, the handbag comes beaded in checked tweed, giving a new texture to the bag.
TVU Networks, the global technology and innovation leader in live IP video solutions, will demonstrate its answer to Media 4.0, the new TVU MediaMind platform, during theNAB Show next week from April 9-12 in Booth C1707.
With developments such as AI, big data, IoT, and cloud computing, all businesses are undergoing rapid changes to their business models that also hold the possibility of a significant upside inefficiency. Industry 4.0* is a term coined to describe how these technologies can combine to produce a ‘smart factory,’ capable of making decisions and performing autonomously. This follows on the back of earlier breakthroughs, including: 1) mechanization powered by steam and water 2) mass production powered by electricity and 3) computerized automation.
Currently, the video industry is experiencing its own sea change in the way video content is produced, distributed and consumed. Referred to as Media 4.0 or as ‘Enabled Media’ by TVU Networks, this evolution enables the customization of video per the specific requirements and tastes of individual consumers and its distribution through an automated process. AI engines recognize video content and automate its creation and distribution to cell phones, streaming to the Internet, television and social media channels.
“Media 4.0 is about enabling the mass production of content for individual audiences through the automation of video production and distribution,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “This helps media companies looking to produce more content without increasing their expenditures. Instead of creating content manually, technology can enable the tailoring of that raw video to viewers on specific social media platforms, cell phones, streaming channels, and TV. Archived footage can be repurposed as an asset complete with searchable metadata. Media companies can’t earn revenue from material that’s never broadcasted.”
TVU MediaMind consists of TVU Contribution Automation, TVU AI Engine, TVU Real-Time Search Engine, TVU Workflow Engine and TVU Producer Pro. From the start of the video production process, all video is immediately indexed based on its metadata by TVU MediaMind’s AI real-time search engine. Using an entirely cloud-based model complete with voice and object recognition, live and pre-produced video clips are located and indexed down to the exact frame and can be shared instantly. MediaMind automates the ability for different production groups to find the content. With cloud-based TVU Producer Pro, different content can be cost-effectively created for different platforms or even audience groups.
Existing TVU customers can quickly utilize the benefits of TVU MediaMind, such as a real-time search engine for all of their media assets. The TVU AI Engine can be enabled with tens of thousands of TVU Transceivers deployed around the world.
“TVU MediaMind creates a new story-centric workflow, as opposed to a program-centric one, that removes the barriers involved in video production and how the video is shared with different production groups,” explained Shen. “It opens the floodgates for how programs are produced and distributed, removing barriers from the social media, digital and broadcast programming departments and creating one centralized search engine for all raw materials, live or recorded, that feeds all channels. And it helps media companies better target their audiences with appropriate programs.”
TVU Networks has over 2,500 customers in more than 85 countries. The TVU Networks family of IP transmission and live production solutions gives broadcasters and organizations a powerful and reliable workflow to distribute live video content to broadcast online and mobile platforms. TVU has become a critical part of the operations of many major media companies. The TVU Networks suite of solutions has been used to acquire, transmit, produce, manage and distribute professional-quality live IP HD footage as an integral part of the news, sports, and major global events. For more information about TVU Networks solutions, please visit www.tvunetworks.com.
*Industry 4.0 refers to the automation, digitalization, and networking of design, production, information, communication and management processes.
About TVU Networks®
TVU Networks® is the global technology and innovation leader in live IP video solutions. TVU’s solutions help transform broadcasters’ SDI-based operations – which include acquisition, transmission, routing, distribution, and management – to an IP-based infrastructure. TVU® serves customers of all sizes in more than 85 countries from industries that include news broadcast, web streaming, law enforcement, sports, corporate and government. In broadcast markets around the world including the USA, China, and other major economic powers, TVU® is the dominant market leader with a large majority of all news broadcast stations using its IP video solutions. Using its proprietary IS+ technology, TVU’s uplink solutions use any combination of cellular, satellite, microwave, Wi-Fi and Ethernet IP connections to deliver live HD video from practically any location.
TVU Contact:Robin Hoffman
Pipeline Communications
(917) 763-8069
robinhoffman@pipecomm.com
SOURCE TVU Networks
6 million EU residents will travel to the GCC over next three years
Additional routes, low airfares and increasing mid-market hotels driving growth
ATM participants interested in doing business with Europe increased 147% between 2016 and 2017
Arrivals from Europe to the GCC will increase 17% over the period 2018 to 2020, driven by extra flights, routes, competitive fares, and the rising number of mid-market hotels throughout the region, according to the latest data published ahead of Arabian Travel Market 2018, which takes place at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 22-25.
According to Arabian Travel Market’s research partner, Colliers International, as many as 24.6 million EU residents will travel to the GCC between now and 2020, an additional four million travellers when compared to figures for 2015 – 2017.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to be the preferred GCC destinations for European visitors, together they are on track to welcome 81% of the projected business and leisure travellers. The UAE is expected to receive 14.5 million, Saudi Arabia 5.4 million, Oman 2.21 million, Bahrain 1.72 million and Kuwait 738,000, by 2020.
Simon Press, Senior Exhibition Director, ATM, said: “Historically, Europe and the GCC have enjoyed excellent travel and tourism links. Building on this, over the next three years, EU arrivals to the GCC will increase and we will see this in both the leisure and business segments.
“While European tourists have previously travelled to the GCC for its luxury resorts, the growing numbers of millennial travelers, middle-class tourists and corporate travellers on a budget, are slowly changing traditional market trends, as is the growth in affordable, mid-market hotels combined with an increase in low-cost flights.”
Besides Emirates’ new route to Stansted airport in the UK, flydubai is scheduled to start flying to Krakow in Poland this month, further extending the carrier’s Eastern and Central European network, to 24 destinations, including Belgrade, Bratislava, Bucharest, Prague, Skopje, Sarajevo and Sofia.
Furthermore, GCC hotel developers have turned their attention to quality mid-market properties with Dubai and Riyadh now home to a collection of four-star hotels flagged by names such as Aloft, Centro and Studio M. This growth will continue with a 19.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) forecast in four-star development between 2018 and 2020.
In terms of the outbound market potential, this year ATM welcomes more than 100 European exhibitors to the show, with names such as Atout France, Hard Rock Hotel London, the Slovenian Tourist Board, Tourist Office of Spain, Austrian National Tourist Office and Czech Tourism Authority participating.
Figures from ATM 2017 show the number of delegates, exhibitors and attendees interested in doing business with Europe increased by 147% between the 2017 edition and the previous year, with the number of delegates arriving from Europe, up by 8%.
Colliers data indicates GCC travel to Europe will grow 36% over the next three years, with a forecasted 8.5 million GCC residents projected to visit Europe. While part of this growth can be attributed to the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s large expatriate populations, GCC nationals are no strangers to European destinations, its culture, history, as well as its retail and luxury hospitality offerings.
Press added: “Travel to Europe will continue to be dominated by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which together will account for 93% of GCC arrivals to the continent. Germany, Italy, the UK, Austria and Switzerland have historically been the top European destinations for GCC nationals to visit.
“In the UK, the Brexit announcement has weakened the British Pound providing an additional incentive for Gulf tourists, while travel to Switzerland is dominated by GCC residents’ growing interest in medical tourism aided by the relaxation of tourist visa requirements.”
Looking further ahead, ATM 2018 will examine the impact of Brexit on the relationship between the UK and GCC during the Global Stage panel debate Going Solo. The discussion will attempt to address the many unanswered questions about inbound and outbound tourism in a post Brexit-Britain, specifically covering potential changes to aviation rules and other regulatory and economic challenges that could occur.
About Arabian Travel Market (ATM) is the leading, international travel and tourism event in the Middle East for inbound and outbound tourism professionals. ATM 2017 attracted almost 40,000 industry professionals, agreeing deals worth US$2.5bn over the four days. The 24th edition of ATM showcased over 2,500 exhibiting companies across 12 halls at Dubai World Trade Centre, making it the largest ATM in its 24-year history. Arabian Travel Market now in it’s 25th year will take place from Sunday, 22nd April – Wednesday, 25th April 2018 www.arabiantravelmarketwtm
Founded in March 2012 in Barcelona, ByHours.com is one of the startups of the year in Spain. It is the winner of several awards for being an innovative project that has introduced a new business model in the tourism sector, and for its growth, as in just 2 years there are already 28 people working in its offices.
ByHours.com is an on-line platform and is also a mobile application, which allows the customer to choose their hotel check-in and check-out time, and book the hours they need, in packs of 3, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours. On one hand, it offers the customer flexibility and payment according to use, so that they can book a hotel only for the time they need it, always based on fair Price. On the other hand, it allows hotel operators to make their rooms more profitable, as they can sell them more than once per day, and this increase their RevPAR.
ByHours.com is already working with over 600 hotels all over Spain from the best national and international hotel chains, such as H10, Eurostars or Meliá. Now, having consolidated the business model in Spain, it will open its way into internationalization and will operate in the UK, Germany, and Italy within the first and the second quarter of 2014. Actually, ByHours.com is operating in London, with 10 own recruited hotels.
In this internationalization stage, ByHours.com has added experience and talent to its team, and included a new signing: Amine Saoudi, former CFO from Splendia.com, who has a great career path in opening new markets.
ByHours.com is intended for all those situations where a hotel is only needed for a few hours, and so it offers hotels near train stations, ports, and airports, in order to avoid waiting; hotels near congress centers, urban centers, and highway rest areas; and also hotels near hospitals for all patients or accompanying persons needing a few hotel hours in order to rest, but without moving too far off from the health center.
In relation to daily hotel operations, ByHours.com provides an internal tool that allows them to decide the price, hour packs, and check-in hours they want to sell, as well as connect with their PMS-Channel Manager, to make management easier and faster. The hotel operator decides at all times what they want to sell, how, and at what price, and ByHours.com receives a direct commission from the hotel operator, as the customer always pays at the hotel.
The key to ByHours.com resides in that it is not only a site aimed at the final client, but also aimed at B2B. Thus, it has three business lines: Travel, Healthcare, and Leisure. These business lines allow us to work with important partners from different sectors, with ByHours.com being the only hotel accommodation-by-hours distributor. ByHours.com offers integration tools, such as for example White labels, which are completely customizable, allowing each partner to design its hotelby-hours search engine with their corporate image, and offer their customers an added value and a complementary product.
In the travel line, ByHours.com is working with the number 1 in online flight sales, the Odigeo Group. eDreams is already selling hotel rooms by hours in Spain on its website. It is a very ambitious agreement that upon internationalization, it will let us work with other Odigeo brands: Opodo, Travellink, and GoVoyages.
In this business line, ByHours.com also works with major industry leaders such as Pullmantur, Viajes Carrefour, or Grupo Areas. Within its Healthcare line, ByHours.com is working with hospitals all over Spain, which already offer accommodation by hours at their centers; this is also a product very much targeted towards health tourism. ByHours Healthcare also works with major insurance companies, which offer this service in their policies.
Finally, the Leisure line is designed to complement leisure situations, and therefore ByHours.com works with ticketing companies, and also in different actions with nightclubs, theaters, movie theaters, or special events, in order to offer a different and complementary service.
Other important areas addressed were the impact social media and influencer marketing has had and how one manages to keep their brand and image on social as authentic as possible, whilst overcoming some of the fashion misconceptions in the region.
Fashion has definitely seen a major shift in the GCC over the last few years, moving away from being known as purely high end ‘fashion consumers’ to giving rise to some of the industry’s fashion game changers. Rabia Zargarpur is an example of such, becoming one of the first designers to showcase Modest Fashion ready-to-wear looks on mainstream runways and fashion shows.
A stand out take home message for all our guests would have to be that no designer ‘made it’ straight out of fashion school; brands like Tom Ford and Valentino all began at the bottom, working for others and building their story, and did not become successful overnight. The other key message was that there is no such thing as perfection – trial and error are key in all aspects of career and life, and if you don’t try you’ll never know!
The panel wrapped up at 11am and all guests enjoyed an hour long opportunity to network with each other and the speakers after the talk, with business cards and contacts exchanged at all levels. As always, the energy that built in the room was infectious and the advice shared invaluable.”
Our next Career Clinic will be held in collaboration with Mompreneurs ME at Life N One, Jumeirah, on April 23rd. To register your interest, email us at events@hopscotch.ae. 
