Destination Dubai

2015 is going to be a busy year for the gang at Emirates Airlines in Canada.

Canadian Travel Press’ executive editor, Bob Mowat reports that travel agents will be well-advised to keep an eye on the carrier as it rolls out some new twists to its flight plan over the next 12 months.

Topping the list of what to watch for from the carrier in 2015 will be some aggressive promotion of Dubai as a stand-alone destination – rather than just a stopover – in the Canadian market.

To do that, the carrier has teamed up with a number of new tour operator partners that will be packaging Dubai for Canadian travellers.

Don McWilliam, country manager, Canada for Emirates, told Canadian Travel Press that, to a great extent, the carrier has promoted Dubai as a stopover destination out of Canada and North America and has been “very successful” doing that, using Kompas Express – http://www.kompasexpress.com – as its fulfillment centre for those stopover programs.

“Quite clearly,” McWilliam said, “we can’t ignore Dubai as a destination any longer, and for the first time, we are aggressively pursuing tour operators in Canada and we are [now] working with a number of [tour] companies.”

Along with Kompas, Emirates has added ALBATours, Goway, Flight Centre and Collette Vacations to its list of operator partners in the Canadian market.

Click here for the full story in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press.