Dubai Airports to embrace Chinese culture as CNY looms

By Andrew Pentol |

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Dubai Airports’ CEO Paul Griffiths (right) with Lei Jin, Economic and Commercial Counsellor from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Dubai.

Dubai Airports has announced various activities involving food, music, dedicated services and special amenities across Dubai International Airport (DXB) in celebration of Chinese New Year.

The week-long celebrations were launched today (30 January) at DXB where Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports and Eugene Barry, EVP of Commercial, welcomed Lei Jin, Economic and Commercial Counsellor and Weiyun Deng, Consular Attaché from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Dubai.

Other dignitaries included Berthold Trenkel, COO, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, Li Wang, Director EMEA Ant Financial, Alibaba,  Randi Cui, Local General Manager, China Eastern Airlines, Wang Yanming, Local General Manager, China Southern, Gao Zhan, Station Manager, Air China, Jonathan Ng, Local General Manager, Cathay Pacific and Steven Liu, Station Manager, Sichuan Airlines.

DEDICATED SERVICES

Chinese travellers arriving at DXB in the coming days, where Dubai Duty Free recently inaugurated its Chinese New Year celebrations, will enjoy dedicated services and special amenities as part of Dubai Airports’ ‘China Ready’ strategy designed to boost traffic between Dubai and the 13 Chinese destinations served by DXB.

Apart from celebrating Chinese culture through art, food, and musical performances, the airport has taken a number of integrated steps to engage Chinese travellers. These include the installation of portable hot water dispensers, use of Mandarin language for communication, digital menus for select restaurants and digital channels such as the airport’s Wow-Fi product.

A special Mandarin edition of the airport’s Time Out DXB magazine has also been created.

In addition, several retail and food concessionaires have are offering the Alipay payment option. Dubai Airports is also deploying Mandarin-speaking ‘May I Help You Staff’ at key customer touch-points across the airport, while providing four dedicated immigration counters at arrivals hosted by Emiratis fluent in Mandarin.

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A traditional Chinese Palace Dance performed at DXB to launch a week of Chinese New Year celebrations.

Meanwhile, Dubai Airports has partnered with the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing to include special passport inserts at immigration for arriving Chinese travellers

These will include a QR code linking with recommendations for events taking place across the city during Chinese New Year. Late last year, Dubai Airports also signed an agreement with Chinese tour operator C-Trip.

Dubai Airports said: “The celebrations are part of Dubai Airports’ plan which focuses on anticipating requirements unique to the Chinese culture and making product and service enhancements accordingly to enhance services to growing number of Chinese travellers at DXB.”

In 2018, passenger traffic between DXB and China grew by 6% to 3.5m with six airlines operating 205 weekly flights to 13 destinations.

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Right to left: Dubai Airports’ Executive Vice President, Commercial, Eugene Barry, Dubai Airports’ CEO Paul Griffiths, Lei Jin, Economic and Commercial Counsellor and Weiyun Deng, Consular Attache from the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Dubai and Li Wang, Director EMEA Ant Financial, Alibaba.

 

 

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