When your business is providing outdoor fun for residents and visitors to the country during the sweltering summer months, trying to encourage people to go dune bashing or fly in a hot air balloon can be a challenge.
But tour operators have to rise to the occasion.
Arabian Adventures describes itself as a "destination management company", which means it can manage all aspects of a holiday, from visas to hotel stays to scuba diving.
Peter Payet, a senior vice president for Arabian Adventures, which is part of Emirates Group, says that although the daytime temperature regularly peaks above 40°Cin the summer, the company's desert safari and dining trips are still very popular.
"At this time of year, the biggest chunk of business comes in from the Gulf region," he said. "Dubai attracts a lot of family business in the summer."
Arabian Adventures entices tourists to venture out into the heat by offering discounts and throwing in extras such as free entry to water parks for children.
It also capitalises on visually striking man-made attractions, operating catamaran cruises and boat trips around the Palm Jumeirah and the Marina in Dubai.
The company is marketing intensively in China and Russia, particularly for corporate tours.
In the winter months, Arabian Adventures typically takes about 600 customers into the desert each day for dune bashing, dining, stargazing or animal tracking.
In the summer, the number of guests drops by more than 50 per cent, but the company is still taking more than 250 people each day.
"It's amazing how many people are still doing it," says Mr Payet, who predicts a strong summer for Dubai tourism. "We still have a significant amount of business coming in during the summer."
There is certainly no shortage of visitors for tour operators to fight over. Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing predicts that tourism numbers will exceed 10 million for the first time this year.
Many hotels expect to have occupancy over 60 per cent during the summer, and landmark hotels such as Atlantis The Palm expect to be more than 80 per cent occupied this month and next.
Ricardo Gonzales, the marketing manager for the tour operator Dadabhai Travel, also tries to include discounted tickets to a water park so the company's clients can cool down after a trip to the desert.
"It's not really slow during the summer because we still get a substantial amount of people coming to our camps," he says.
Dadabhai says it takes about 500 guests to its desert camps on weekends during the cooler months in Dubai, with visitor numbers falling to about 300 daily in the summer.
Dadabhai also offers packages from the UAE to cities such as Istanbul to make up for lower revenue from Dubai during the hot season.
"During the summer months our marketing does not go down, but it is focused on outbound travel," says Mr Gonzales.
All the providers of desert safaris take guests out later at night and do not recommend staying in tents overnight.
Tour operators offer discounts and tweak their packages, but even in the searing heat, they still can make a cool profit.
rjones@thenational.ae
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Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
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Key facilities
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- Premier League-standard football pitch
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
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