Leisure firms see untapped potential in UAE

Top leisure sports and travel executives have said the leisure industry remains underserved in the Gulf, even in the region’s tourism hub, the UAE.

That includes the non-luxury market in Dubai, underdeveloped areas in the northern emirates and countries like Oman, which has been attracting more outdoors enthusiasts with diving and camping.

In Dubai, “it’s untapped - there’s definitely room for more competition and more leisure-oriented activities,” said Arnaud Palu, chief operating officer of sports activity center Playnation, which saw its skydiving simulator attract 50,000 unique visitors last year.

Meanwhile, leisure retailer BodyGlove – which manages dive schools and sells equipment for more extreme leisure activities like deep water diving - has seen its regional profits increase 100 percent in the first quarter of 2010, over the same period last year.

“The GCC as a whole, it’s untapped,” Hisham Hasan, its Middle East VP of operations, told Arabian Business. “We’re seeing it pick up hugely in Oman. We sponsor a dive school there and they’ve had crazy amounts of pickup over the last six months.

“We’re seeing more sales in western Saudi. We have a push there. Qatar is a business oriented market, but hotels are looking to switch their profiles to the leisure traveller.”

The UAE, often thought to be a leisure hub thanks to Dubai’s luxury market and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, could see pickup in underdeveloped areas out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi focusing on less expensive fare, like cheap diving and biking.

“Out of Dubai there’s so much land yet to be developed, so many coves and sea front areas,” Patrick Antaki, general manager, Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort, told Arabian Business. “The UAE is a market that we’ve only tapped into with the five-star luxury market. We haven’t started looking at volume, club concepts, charter operators, all this is still totally untapped…

"There’s plenty of chance for increasing the numbers, especially with people who can’t afford to go to Dubai, or want to be in the area but want something different.”

In 2012, the first Waldorf property in the UAE will open – not in one of the glitzier emirates, but in quiet Ras-Al-Khaimah.

To get areas like the rural diving spots near Fujairah up and running, the country “still has a tremendous amount of infrastructure to build up,” Antaki said.