Sharjah Tourism, Cultural Tourism

Abu Dhabi has developed a particular cultural identity and Dubai one of the best city brands in the entire world. How Sharjah does differ from other emirates?

Well, that’s a good question. Everyone is trying to promote themselves as the destination for culture and heritage in this region and, in fact, around the world. I find that it’s an abused term. Hence, we decided to rebrand ourselves and we just announced our new brand – Sharjah Destination. We have classified different sectors that we would like to focus on and they are culture and heritage, leisure, education, the East coast – Khorffakan, Kalba and Dibba – on the Indian Ocean the business and MICE sector. You could say that covers most things about tourism but these are our unique selling points. We see that Abu Dhabi and Dubai and other emirates of the UAE as well as Qatar, Oman and Bahrain are all aggressively promoting themselves as destinations. So, you need to come out of the clutter, you need to reflect what you have to offer to the consumers, to tourists and to related industries so that they can indentify you as separate from all this “clutter”. I think that Sharjah has a lot to offer, this might be a biased opinion because I’m from Sharjah, and from the Sharjah Tourism sector, but we feel that it is time we classified all of these lovely elements within a new culture, a new brand, a new identity to Sharjah as a tourist destination.

Can you tell us more about this strategic rebranding?

As I mentioned earlier, Sharjah was chosen by UNESCO in 1998 as the cultural capital of the Arab world. This didn’t come out of nothing; it was the commitment of His Highness Sheikh Doctor Sultan Al Qassimi, ruler and member of the Supreme Council of the UAE. Sharjah today has 20 museums and educational centers. Sharjah has a unique university city in the whole region. It is one of the pioneering emirates or cities in the region that had the first elementary school in the whole region, let alone the UAE. It also had the first airport, the first export centre. However, just saying that you were the first doesn’t mean you are still the first. But it shows that there is vision in this emirate and these are the elements that we would like to take to the next level. Today we have taken major strides and successes in different fronts and we feel that with the rebranding that we have we are not trying to cover any downfalls, we have achieved a lot and we want to achieve more. We want this destination to become an investment and anything that we do should be an investment rather than just expense. So we have to be consistent with our measures. We have to be consistent with our message, whether it’s for the business industry or the tourism industry. The logo that we have chosen is composed of different colors: gold for business and MICE sector, magenta representing culture and heritage, orange representing the leadership, light blue represents education and dark blue represents the East coast, meaning water activities, the beaches, etc. Even the choice of colors has international representation so they were not just chosen because subjectively I like them. It is internationally known that magenta represents culture and heritage. We would like to always show that Sharjah is the cultural heart of the region, let alone the United Arab Emirates.

What kind of tourists are you aiming to attract? What are your major markets?

We’ve always devised our strategy to attract families. Sharjah is well known to be a dry state. Having said that, it has nice entertainment developed for families. Sharjah tries to have a lot of cultural activities. For example, a while back, four months ago we had Sharjah Heritage Days which coincided with United Nations Culture Days. There is also Sharjah Theatre Days, Sharjah Book Fair, and more. These are the international activities that are happening here in Sharjah as well as the thousands of smaller events that are happening. So, we don’t claim that we are the cultural capital because we have some buildings we call museums, there are activities and a message that we are trying to put forward. In summary, we’re trying to have an edutainment hub, where there is the educational part and the entertainment. We would like people to come from around the world, we’re not trying to attract a certain nationality, from a certain region or continent. We feel like we are the museum of the world. We would like people to come and learn from our culture and respect our culture and they would leave our destination with something to tell and become an ambassador of Sharjah and the UAE.

As cultural leader of the UAE, what is your cultural responsibility towards the UAE and especially Dubai which is trying to develop its own culture?

I don’t find that Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Ras Al Khaimah are trying to find a different culture in terms of what they promote. We all have the same culture: Islam as our religion, we have a similar heritage, we are very intertwined. The UAE is a very small country, you can fly from Fujairah to Abu Dhabi in 45 minutes. Some countries in Europe would take you 4 hours to fly between two towns let alone two cities. So, we do have the same culture. If you look at it from the perspective of how they’re promoting themselves maybe it’s a different culture, but that depends on their strategy and their plans for their destinations. But I think, at the end of the day, it complements rather than harms the destination. If we take the UAE as a destination, as a tourist you can come and visit Dubai and then commute between the different emirates in such a short period of time without any borders or rules and regulations which will take you long hours just to get from point A to point B. It’s like a cruise liner when you go to the Mediterranean and visit certain cities in Italy, France, Malta, etc. and then at the same time you’re staying in the same place because you’re living in the boat. So, here you can stay at a hotel in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Sharjah and you can commute and then come back to your hotel within the same package. So, this is the added value that we give and instead of having one promotional authority or one tourism authority promoting the UAE, you have seven, which adds more value and every day we complement each other with different products.

Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority have been pursuing an aggressive promotional campaign via the attendance at many high profile exhibitions. What effect do you think you have had on Sharjah, both in terms of direct and indirect impact?

I think for any tourism authority it is very hard to measure the indirect returns, unless you can have somebody running behind tourists everywhere they go watching how much they spend. But if we look at it statistically, in 2000, we had 600,000 guests staying at Sharjah hotels and last year we reached 1.5 million so that says a lot. We had 20 properties back then and we have 90 properties today. So, in terms of direct returns, you can see from these figures. Indirectly, I’m sure that these tourists who came to Sharjah and stayed in these hotels have helped the economy to thrive: they have helped the restaurants, the taxis, the hotels themselves and the suppliers of the hotels. So, it’s a huge chain. I feel that it’s not for us to say that we did a great job but for the government and the people who judge us but we can give the facts and people can come back and tell us if we’re doing a good job or not. On top of that, we are enjoying an 85% occupancy rate here, which is one of the highest in the world.

What are your short and mid-term targets for 2008-2010?

We have some challenges. We think that we need to increase our room inventory. We have a total of 7000 at the moment, we hope we can double it in the next 5 years. We hope that it will be between three and five star and more beach resorts. Moreover, we have plans to develop our MICE sector. We are lagging behind in this area and we have to work harder in the meeting centre, conference and exhibitions sector. Last but not least, we have plans to develop the infrastructure of the East coast: Khorffakan, Kalba and Dibba. They have great potential for mountain trekking and scuba diving. These are the sectors we need to develop because hotel resorts, shopping malls, souks, and other similar infrastructures can help the economy.

One type of infrastructure that doesn’t concern you directly but does have an impact on the tourism industry is the road infrastructure. Is that being developed?

Sharjah’s government is spending billions year after year on infrastructure but if we’re talking about the East coast, I think it is an international standard of networked roads, underpasses and less than two years ago we opened a 1 km long tunnel in the mountains to Kalba and this is a unique project in the whole Emirates. So, the government is not lagging back in terms of its aggressiveness developing its infrastructure.

You mentioned that you would like to double your room capacity. Are you entering in strategic partnerships with international hotel chains?

We are happy to say that the Marriott will open a resort in the next couple of years, in 2010. We also have Sheraton, Novotel and Rotana, just to mention a few. I think these international chains will add value to the destination.

You are also developing your airport capacity. How important is Sharjah International Airport?

The airport is a fundamental pillar of any destination. Stage 1 has been completed. On top of that, there is Air Arabia, which is expanding aggressively and will eventually play a major role in our destination.

Imagine a French or European tourist coming to the airport of Sharjah, what can Sharjah offer? What mix of unique experience could you provide?

I think it depends on what you’re trying to offer. We’re not trying to offer skyscrapers, or the best shopping malls; we’re not trying to offer something that you can find somewhere else. We are trying to offer what we do best, and that’s our heritage and culture. We have studied the market and we believe that all the European tourists, when they come to the UAE, come for the beach, the sun, and the desert. To wrap everything up, what is your culture and heritage? I would like to see your old houses, and your museums, not just bricks and walls – we want to see the life in those museums, things that you carry with you, artifacts, as I said, the edutainment part. Sharjah has one of the three oldest maps in the world in its Islamic museum. It also has the Arabian Wildlife Centre where they are breeding more than 300 endangered animals: for example, the Arabian leopard. This centre has more than half a million visitors a year. It is a unique centre in the whole region. In the next couple of months, we are going to open an aquarium and maritime museum, which adds extra value to the product of Sharjah. However, having said that we’re not looking for shopping malls and skyscrapers, it doesn’t mean we don’t have them. We do have them, but we’re not promoting Sharjah as the place to come to find the best shopping malls.

So you’re just developing what you do best, not the things that you can find anywhere else?

From my perspective, if you do that then you will lose your identity, and if you lose your identity, you will attract people but they will only come once and will never come back again.

Sharjah’s Expo Centre has been responsible for many of the major international exhibitions which have been successfully held in the UAE. How important is exhibition travelling for Sharjah? What are the key events you are hosting?

I think that the MICE sector, which stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions, is a very important sector and expo is a major role player. Look at today, we are an exhibition – Arabian Travel Market – and there are over a 100 participants, and maybe 90% of them are from abroad. So, of these participants there are perhaps 20 people in each stand, so that’s 2000 people staying in Dubai hotels and using Dubai’s taxis so they are tourists at the end of the day, and that is from a certain sector: the MICE sector. So, we feel that we have to develop this so that we can have our own exhibitions.

How do you see the future of Sharjah tourism in 10 years?

We would like to be known as the ultimate cultural educational experience. This is our goal and we will continue building on it, based on the generosity of the ruler of Sharjah. We want to be the cultural ambassador of the UAE.

You are the representative of this emirate’s tourist industry. What is your personal ambition?

I think promoting something you love is easier than promoting something you care about. I am from Sharjah, I was born and raised there and I love it like my family. So, promoting is not my duty or my job, it’s me. So, I hope I can achieve something for the next generation. I am the ambassador of Sharjah today with my colleagues and friends from other departments. We are a growing population and I hope that we can open the doors for future generations so that they will find it easier to continue this journey. I think that in tourism the most difficult thing is to go abroad and tell people about your country and that they can figure out where it is. If they can, then everything else is easy. For example, if I went abroad and said I am from somewhere called “Bako”, no one would know where it is, it could be in Latin America or Africa or East Asia. But if I said I am from New York, automatically people know where it is. This is the most difficult thing and it takes time to make the wheel go round but once it starts, it doesn’t stop. So, we’re trying to get the wheel to spin with all the destinations we go to and all the markets we try to open, and eventually when the next generation takes over, in the next five or ten years, it will be established.

You mentioned that you are opening new markets?

Every year we try to open new markets. We participated this time in Sweden and the Scandinavian market. We started in Turkey a couple of years ago. We always discuss it with our travel industry because we believe in communicating both ways; we’re both in the same boat, there’s no point in sending our offices wherever we want without looking at the needs of the private sector.