International Study Tour - Part 1

Tourism in the UAE and insights into Dubai’s luxury hotel industry

This year our students from the Master’s program “Entrepreneurship & Tourism” had the chance to be part of the International Study Program 2021. Together with 22 students from the 3^rd semester master as well as 3 alumni our study trip led us to Dubai. Following our motto “We make the world our classroom” students were able to gain insights into international tourism development and tourism marketing within an international context.  

We started our journey with an introduction to Tourism in the UAE by our head of studies Prof. Hubert Siller, followed by a guest lecture session by industry experts. Robert Groeblacher from the Austrian National Tourism Board in Dubai gave us insights into tourism development in the UAE as well as on doing marketing within an international context. Stefan Magiera from the Saudi-Arabian Airline Flynas held his lecture on Saudi-Arabia as a relatively unknown but emerging tourism market and gave insights into the Airline industry in the Gulf area. Samer Alhaider from Emirates Airlines as well referred on the Airline industry in the UAE with a special focus on current challenges and trends the big gulf carriers are facing. Moreover, he impressively explained which role Emirates Airlines played in the development of Dubai as an international renowned tourism destination.

During our study trip, we also had the pleasure to visit our long-term partner university in Dubai, the Emirates Academy of Hospitality. After a warm welcome and show-around at the Academy, Prof. David Butterton held a lecture on “Doing business in the UAE”. Due to his impressive knowledge about the Arabian business world, students gained new perspectives on working in an intercultural environment.

Besides the visitation of major attractions such as the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Frame and the Palm Jumeirah, students were also able to gain insights into the luxury hotel and service industry in Dubai. Our first stop was the famous hotel Burj al Arab, during a show-around students were able to gain a glance behind the scene of the self-declared 7-star hotel. For our second show-around, we visited the very innovative and contemporary hotel W Dubai – The Palm, a best-practice example when it comes to target-group specific product development and marketing. Both hotel visits impressively showed our students how customer satisfaction and delight is achieved.