Majid's mission

Majid Al Mulla, newly-elected head of the Dubai Travel and Tour Agents Group (DTTAG) speaks exclusively to ATN about his plans to drive the association forward

One of the biggest problems facing Dubai’s travel trade is its lack of unity, says Majid Al Mulla. The newly-elected president of the Dubai Travel and Tour Agents Group (DTTAG) is the first to admit that the trade is suffering due to the absence of a strong industry body to give agents a much-needed voice against other forces in the market.

But why has DTTAG struggled so hard to unite the travel agents of Dubai? “It has been a challenge because it’s not mandatory for travel agencies to have membership of DTTAG,” explains Al Mulla. “Some agencies are not as professional as others and they need guidance to understand how DTTAG can benefit them.”

With the departure of previous DTTAG president Iain Andrew; Majid Al Mulla has stepped into his shoes on a renewed mission to galvanise the trade. “The main objective is to get more members. I would like to see all licensed operators, TMCs and travel agencies being a member of DTTAG. But we are working towards getting at least one-third extra. So this time next year we should have 100 members,” he states.

Getting the owners on board
But how is he going to do it? Al Mulla believes any real change in the travel sector will not come about until the real decision makers, the people at the top holding the purse strings — or in other words the travel agency owners — are brought on board.

He says the owners need to be brought up to date with the changing nature of the travel sector, so they are more inclined to make investments needed to grow the industry in the right direction.

Al Mulla’s plan is to create an “‘Owners Club” — “where we can gather the agency owners in order that we can have them understand where this industry is going” and how to move away from the “old practices” of the past which are stagnating the industry.

“The old model of business of opening a travel shop and executing business — that will vanish. It has vanished in so many places around the world, and with the advancement of technology and services, the same thing might happen in Dubai.

“The owners here might be involved in the profit and loss; but they are not involved in profit enhancement, the deliverable changes, service enhancement; educating team members, or bringing standards up in terms of training. If these issues can be driven up to the business owners, I think they will definitely see the value in them.”

Al Mulla admits there’s another reason he wants the top brass of travel companies to get behind DTTAG — and that’s influence.

“Bringing the owners on board will give more value to DTTAG as an association. Our objective is to get our voices raised and bring them to the attention of IATA, the government bodies, and the airlines. That is crucial, and to have an owner — a level higher — on top of that, the communication level is different. You are going to get a lot more positive feedback from an owner than a general manger.

Rules and regulations
Al Mulla’s ambitions do not stop at the company owners. His next project is to get government bodies — including the Dubai Civil Aviation, DTCM, and Ministry of Economy —involved in with DTTAG in a bid to regulate the industry.

“They are going to be the regulatory bodies that will drive the rules and regulations of the travel industry. We need to bring them in line with us and get their buy-in to be part of DTTAG, sitting in at a higher level.”

All Mulla wants IATA to get involved, “so it’s a triangle we are trying to create between the government, the processers which are IATA and the travel industry.”

He explains that increased regulation of the travel trade is absolutely vital, both for the protection of travel agents as well as for the protection the consumer.

“This regulatory body is required to protect customers from fraud or mishandling and to ensure there is a standardised way of doing things, for example service charges.”

Regulating service charges will help profitability as every agency will charge the correct fee, but it will also ensure “transparency and customer rights” as “people would know what they were paying for” says Al Mulla.

Raising the game
Al Mulla acknowledges the biggest challenge will be raising standards, in an industry notorious for “doing it for less”, and seeing service levels suffer because of that.
“You don’t see consistant service levels here. It depends on the location, the business and type of customer the agency has. Some might not need service — that’s the nature of business in this type of the world. 75% is point to point.”

Al Mulla says he wants to every agency in Dubai to offer nothing less than “85%” level of service; which makes you wonder what customers are experiencing now?

“That’s difficult to say. Some might be exceeding 90% and some might be at a level of just 50% or 60%”

The only way for the entire sector to up its game is more investment in training.
It’s an initiative DTTAG has been tirelessly pushing through its free courses for members; and it’s something Al Mulla says he will staunchly continue to support.

“I’m always repeating training, training, training. It’s about educating people in this business which is desperately required because the business is ever changing.” training the trade.

Ultimately Al Mulla wants to see a travel consultant qualification become mandatory for those in the industry; and in the future a travel academy to be established in Dubai.
“If you want to enhance standards definitely a qualification is part of this. For me a travel consultant is a very professional job equal to any other — nurses, doctors, engineers, or other industries.

“That’s the sort of a qualification that is needed. In Dubai travel and tourism is our future, and there are no mandatory standards for consultants or even managers here. Maybe the bigger picture will drive us to have a school — who knows?”

Future thoughts
“What I foresee for DTTAG is that it should be a community of travel agents. I’d like to see it as a proper association where we’ve got a lot of activities. Where it’s not just a relationship between the office, the executive committee members and the agents.

“It’s very important to get people together,” he adds. “I have attended general body meetings where the smaller agencies were so motivated when they were around the rest of the community.

“We really need to drive that because it will bring people to a level of understanding. Smaller agencies might feel their contribution is not important. But that is not the case.”

In the past DTTAG has failed to galvanise support from Dubai’s travel trade community because initiatives have floundered or failed to materialise; but Al Mulla is optimistic that a fresh wave of thinking will encourage the industry to get involved for the greater good this time.

“Historically there have been initiatives that have not been successful so people think, this has not worked 10 years ago why should it work now?

“But what I see is that if the strength is not there and the unity and the understanding is not there, then individually one after the other we will vanish. Look at any other industry — there is common understanding, there is unity in terms of driving it forward.

“We need to learn from each other. If that does not happen, we lose. Creating that unity for this industry is going to be difficult providing the will is not there. But now I have this feeling that people might want to buy-in this time. We are quite optimistic that people will change their stripes.”