UAE travel firm announces expansion plans

Travel company SNTTA said on Thursday it is planning to expand its network of branches to 25 by the end of 2011, as it starts to see an upswing in the UAE tourism market.

The Sharjah-based travel management firm, which operated in all emirates under different corporate names, will now integrate its operations as ‘SNTTA - Travel the World,’ as part of its new strategy.

“We are aiming for a network of 25 branches by the end of 2011,” said Zafar Imam, the newly appointed managing director of SNTTA Travel, UAE.

“We are targeting over 15 percent growth in 2010, having achieved an impressive 12 percent growth in a difficult year like 2009. This ties in well with our average year-on-year growth of 20 percent over the past six years,” he added.

SNTTA currently has 18 branches across the UAE. Immediate expansion plans include opening a new branch at Mirdif City Centre in March, followed by another in Khorfakkan in May but plans are underway to open more outlets in other emirates, with a focus on Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Aziz Al Qasimi, chairman of Liberty Investment Company, the holding company of Liberty Group, of which SNTTA is a member company, said: “The travel industry has started seeing an upswing in outbound travel as the clouds of recession begin to lift, and we approach the peak summer travel season.

“The re-engineered SNTTA business model will be tuned to fully tap the anticipated buoyancy in the UAE market and deliver a superior level of service to outbound travellers.”

SNTTA is the general sales agent (GSA) in Sharjah for leading airlines, such as Emirates, Iraqi Airways, Kuwait Airways, Pakistan International, Royal Jordanian, Shaheen Air, Sri Lankan and Sudan Airways, and franchise partner for American Express Travel Services.

It is also the GSA for Singapore Airlines in Sharjah and Northern Emirates, and GSA for Indian Railways in the UAE.

SNTTA’s new expansion plan comes at a time when a recent survey by YouGov Siraj confirmed that business travel was on the rebound.

The survey revealed that 46 percent of respondents were confident that business travel would increase this year. The survey, conducted in January 2010, interviewed 330 leisure and 255 business travellers from the UAE.