São Paulo – Dubai wants to increase in 10% the number of Brazilian tourists this year over last year. To do so, the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) and Emirates Airline are promoting the I Sold Dubai campaign, with the goal of training travel agents in the country to sell more packages to the emirate.
The first event of the campaign took place this Thursday (7) in the city of São Paulo, with a training session to nearly 600 travel agents coming from several cities in the state of São Paulo. At least 15 training sessions in different cities of Brazil will be held. The initiative will have also three sweepstakes and will reward nine selected agents that sold packages with gold bars worth BRL 5,000 (USD 1,358.56), BRL 7,000 (USD 1,901.99) and BRL 10,000 (USD 2,717.13).
“According to 2015 statistics, we welcomed more than 64,000 Brazilian tourists. We also have around five thousand Brazilians living and working in the United Arab Emirates”, said Saleh Al Suwaidi, consul general of the UAE in São Paulo.
In order for the package sale to be valid for the campaign, it needs to be done through one of the 15 tourism operators that are participating: Abreu, Agaxtur, BWT, CVC, Flytour, Investur, Milessis, MGM, MMT Gapnet, New Age, Nova Operadora, Raidho, Soft Travel, Teresa Perez and Visual. In addition, the booking of flights needs to be done exclusively with Emirates. The book of rules for the travel agents is available at www.vendidubai.com.br.
The training session in the city of São Paulo was presented by Cibele Moulin, DTCM’s tourism director for South America. In the event, the agents learned more about the emirate, the requirements for visa, the localization for the many hotels categories, the features of each class in the Emirates aircrafts, the main events in the emirate’s schedule, its parks, shopping malls and other attractions.
“Dubai is unique. There’s a lot of things that Brazilian will only find it there. I believe the most defining feature is the contrast between modernity and the Arab culture. It’s the accessible Arab culture. The client that is interested in knowing this will find in Dubai all the modernity and Arab culture mixed together in a single destination”, emphasized Moulin.
Dubai has more than 650 hotels, with 86 being five-star and 96 rated four-star. In the gastronomy area, there are more than six thousand restaurants and coffee shops. For the shopping lovers, Dubai has more than 95 shopping malls, including the world’s largest, the Dubai Mall.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
