Just a few months into the job, and the newly-appointed head of Emirates Holidays, Frédéric Bardin, has big plans for the region’s biggest tour operator.
Frédéric Bardin has a spring in his step when I meet him at the Emirates Holidays headquarters in Dubai.
He has “returned to his roots” he tells me delightedly, when I enquire how the transition is going from his previous role managing Arabian Adventures — the region’s biggest DMC — to heading up the Middle East’s biggest holiday company.
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Through his twenty years with Arabian Adventures, the DMC arm of the Emirates Group, Bardin has become a major personality, and powerful advocate — of the inbound tourism scene, helping to shape Dubai’s astronomical growth as a global destination for leisure, as well as meetings and incentives through the launch of professional congress organiser, Congress Solutions International.
But he admits he’s always had a passion for travel ever since he started his career working for a tour operator back in his native France over thirty years ago. So when the top job at Emirates Holidays came up it was a “natural move” for him.
“I call this job a return to my other roots,” he explains. “I’m one of the few people in my industry — at least in my generation — who has done all the jobs in tourism. In the past people used to stick to one, either you were in tour operating, or you were a travel agent or you were a DMC. But one of the reasons Emirates selected me back in 1990 was that I had experience of all the major areas.”
Making changes
Just a few months into the new job and it’s clear that Bardin is itching to put his own stamp on the company, using this time to suss out the business and “put my nose into everything” as he puts it.
“You never quite do the same thing your predecessor does. Part of management is personal touch, the way you like things done and your core beliefs, so there will inevitably be things that you say, “I don’t like it that way, let’s do it another way.”
So what changes will he be bringing to the company? Well, Bardin reveals that he already has his sights set on expansion, with plans in the pipeline to launch a specialist cruise division which he pegs as one of the biggest emerging travel trends this year.
“People are getting more interested in cruises, especially in the UAE; it’s become a hot topic because there are so many cruise ships coming here now.
“That’s probably awakened interest in some people’s minds — the question is how do you drive these people to actually go on a cruise? My aim is to eventually create a specialist cruise unit, because you need specialists to guide you to the right cruise ship.”
“Cruise is an enormous world,” he continues enthusiastically. “You have cruises for elder people, younger people, families, low-cost. Then you get sailing charters, yachts for 5,000 people, and then the different parts of the world — you can cruise on a canal in France or a river in Germany.”
Other than that, Emirates Holidays naturally grows as its parent company airline grows. New destinations, which the operator is strongly pushing this year with dedicated “mini-brochures” come off the back of new Emirates routes to Geneva, Switzerland (daily flights will be launched in June) and Copenhagen, Denmark (daily flights will be launched in August).
Bardin anticipates that Geneva, and Spain will be the big winners for this year’s summer season. “A lot of UAE nationals go to Geneva in the summer already. Some of the big families including the ruling families have big palaces there, and with the launch of flights to Madrid last year now we are offering Spain for the first summer.”
“Of course we don’t feature every new destination,” he adds quickly, “Emirates is flying to Basra now, but I don’t think we’ll be doing holiday packages to Iraq anytime soon...although you never know.”
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