The past few months have asked something different of all of us at Desert Adventures and Gulf Dunes – a steadier work of showing up, communicating clearly, and continuing to do good work in conditions none of us would have chosen.
When the regional situation began to shift, the immediate questions were practical. What does this mean for arrivals in the next 72 hours? Which partners need to hear from us first? What are we telling teams on the ground? We did not have every answer, and we did not pretend to. What we had was a set of values that had served us through earlier difficult periods, and people across both businesses prepared to make decisions in real time.
Three things mattered most in the last few months:
The first was communication. Partners overseas were watching closely, and silence is its own kind of message. Our commercial and reservations teams kept lines open with tour operators, agents and corporate clients across every source market, often answering the same questions at different hours of the day. The reassurance came not from promises, but honest, transparent communications.
The second was operational steadiness. Our ground teams continued to run airport meet-and-assist, transfers, excursions and group movements with the same discipline they always have. When a major corporate group from India arrived in May for a 750-delegate programme across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, it was one of the first large-scale incentive movements into the UAE following the period of regional tension. The programme ran cleanly. Hotels, transport, attractions, dining, the gala dinner. In parallel, the GDPlus team at Gulf Dunes produced the Al Safeer Congress Ambassador Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony for Dubai Business Events, an evening recognising more than 47 Al Safeer Ambassadors, and their contribution to bringing international business events to the city.
The third was leadership presence in the wider industry conversation. They represented our perspective at the UAE Tourism Majlis convened by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, where DMC concerns and recovery priorities were put directly to HH Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi and HE Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri. In the same period, Sumaira Isaacs was appointed President of The Events Group, the body that gives UAE event professionals a unified voice across conferences, exhibitions, incentives and live events. Stepping into that role during a difficult moment for the sector says something about both Sumaira and the industry’s confidence in Gulf Dunes. Being in these rooms, contributing constructively is part of what this period has asked of us.
We have also kept building. At IMEX Frankfurt earlier this year, the Gulf Dunes team began shaping a new partnership with Zed Ink International to develop IP-driven experiences and MICE programmes for the region. Difficult periods can narrow an organisation’s horizons, or they can sharpen its sense of what comes next. We have chosen the latter.
That outlook also means diversifying our business by taking our experience and services into new destinations. Gulf Dunes will lead a confirmed 3,000-delegate conference in Bangkok, working with our sister DMC, Asian Trails, on the on-ground logistics. The programme will cover full destination management, accommodation, transport, experiences and event production. It builds on a similar programme that Gulf Dunes delivered for the same client in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last year. The client’s decision to entrust us with its programme in another destination is an important endorsement of the expertise within our teams.
Thailand is the first new destination for this particular client partnership, with Gulf Dunes now confirming projects in other destinations around the world that will be announced in due course. Desert Adventures has also expanded into the Maldives, offering a full range of destination products and services, while working with partners to develop inbound tourism across key Eastern European destinations. Together, these initiatives reflect a broader ambition: to take what we do well in the Middle East and apply that knowledge wherever our clients and partners need us.
I want to acknowledge the teams across Desert Adventures and Gulf Dunes who carried this work. The smoothness our partners and guests experienced was the product of a great deal of effort behind the scenes.
There is more work ahead. Confidence in any destination is rebuilt one programme, one partner conversation at a time.
Peter Payet, CEO, Desert Adventures