Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA), which develops the emirate's tourism facilities and drives its domestic and abroad promotions, collected near to 100 tourism stakeholders for a destination workshop developed to increase partnership and alignment of the emirate's promotional activities.

Hosted by the Rixos Bab Al Bahr, the five-star resort on the pristine white sands of Ras Al Khaimah's tranquil Marjan Island, the event attracted industry partners, hoteliers, destination management companies and government entities from across Ras Al Khaimah and the wider UAE. The workshop follows the tourism body launching its new brand identity, Beyond a Journey, earlier this year

" Over the past 12 months RAKTDA has actually developed and evolved numerous aspects of our activities and branding to ensure that we are promoting the destination of Ras Al Khaimah in vital source and emerging markets, while all at once supporting the efforts of our tourist partners. These efforts have actually helped establish the emirate as the fastest growing tourism destination in the GCC," stated Haitham Mattar, CEO of the Ras Al Khaimah TDA.
" The Beyond a Journey workshop is an incredibly essential activity for RAKTDA in terms of sharing our vision for the location with stakeholders and motivating a cohesive, lined up method to bring in a healthy portfolio of visitors from numerous local, regional and worldwide markets. We can accomplish more as an unified location than as a selection of people."

The workshop provided guests with updates on RAKTDA's marketing and interactions activities at home and abroad, consisting of current collaborations with travel trade entities in crucial European and Asian source markets. Extra details were shared on the strategy to draw in one million visitors to the emirate by the end of 2018.

We are in the process of collating our half year statistics and our projections show significant promise for the overall visitor numbers this year, Mattar added. Based on initial results for the first six months of this year and the industrys collective efforts to optimise summer performance, we anticipate further growth in 2016.

A key focus of the workshop centered around digital messaging - a strategic investment area for RAKTDA and a core pillar of its strategy to encourage the support, alignment and active participation of all its tourism sector partners.

The workshop follows the recent announcement that Beyond a Journey, Ras Al Khaimahs brand new destination video, has been named as the Bronze Winner in the 37th Annual Telly Awards. The video was selected from over 13,000 entries from 50 countries by a prestigious judging panel of over 500 accomplished industry professionals.

Attendees gained insights into the correct usage of social media in the effective communication of the destination and its offers through sessions dedicated to social media and TripAdvisor optimisation.