Emirates Holidays eyes growth after 'dull' years

Emirates Holidays, the tour operating arm of the Emirates Group is forecasting a bumper year for holiday travel this year, following two “dull” years of growth due to the credit crisis.

Frederic Bardin, the newly-appointed senior vice president – Emirates Holidays said he anticipated a “very minimum of 20% increase – hopefully 30% - in both revenue and passenger numbers.”

Last year passenger numbers grew by under 10%.

Bardin said: “The last two years were a bit dull, like any business in the world, so now we really need to pick up and we are going to see that.”

He added that while the number of people travelling is increasing, holiday prices will remain static this year.

“Prices haven’t increased a lot since last year. I don’t think any destination can afford to put prices up in an unreasonable way this year because nobody is going to get business going through the roof. So overall rate wise I think it will probably be flat.”

Later this year, Emirates Holidays is expanding with new destinations off the back off Emirates Airline new routes to Geneva, Switzerland (daily flights will be launched in June) and Copenhagen, Denmark (daily flights will be launched in August), which Bardin predicts will be the big winners for the summer holiday season, along with Madrid.

“A lot of UAE nationals go to Geneva in the summer already. We know that some of the big families including the ruing families have big palaces there, and with the launch of flights to Madrid last year now we are offering Spain for the first summer.”