Compare travel pricing in Arabic with Rahlat.com

Source: Rahlat.com website. Screen capture of the home page.

Rahlat.com, the Arabic travel search website done by Arabs for Arabs, aims to help Middle East and Gulf travellers save time and money. The free, independent travel metasearch engine, which supports Arabic and English, discovers the best flight and hotel prices with the click of a mouse, displaying results in a range of currencies.

The Arabic search engine can compare prices from hundreds of travel and airline websites, and almost 1 million hotels located across the globe, and currently attracts more than 100,000 visitors from various countries in the Middle East and Gulf regions, including the UAE, KSA, Jordan and Kuwait.

Company CEO Elie Messo said, "We saw that travellers in the Middle East still bought their tickets from small offline agencies around the corner. Prices they paid were mostly 50% higher compared to what is paid online via travel search engines in Europe. We decided to solve this problem in the Middle East by launching Rahlat.com in Arabic with the vision of providing the same low prices as elsewhere in the world.

Dubai government to create new font called "Dubai" with Microsoft

Source: Dubai Government Media Office.

His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid, the Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, has directed the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai to design a new font called "Dubai". The first phase of the initiative will focus on developing special fonts with advanced typographic features in both Arabic and English.

Sheikh Hamdan affirmed that the new initiative will further position the emirate of Dubai in the field of information technology, especially that the new initiative is in sync with the government’s strategy as regards to leadership and innovation.

“This step will add to our achievements and will bring Dubai ahead in font technologies that supplied by smart information technologies and digital platforms around the world”, Sheikh Hamdan said. He added that the Dubai font pack is projected to be one of the most used fonts due to its distinctive features and specifications.

Following directives of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid, Abdulla Al Shaibani, the Secretary General of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Dubai, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by which Microsoft will be providing the technical support to the team tasked with the development of the font package in accordance to the international standards in this regards. The Dubai font is the first Microsoft font that will be designed by a city and named after it. Microsoft will be providing consultative technical support to the team in charge of the implementation of the initiative to design modern and distinctive typographies in both Arabic and English.

The initiative comes in support to Dubai’s initiatives around innovation launched last year by Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with aim to foster an environment for innovation in institutions and consequently make the UAE a world innovative leader.

On this occasion, Secretary General of the Executive Council Dubai Abdulla Al Shaibani said that the initiative is in line with the vision of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum aiming to position the emirate of Dubai at the forefront on a global level. He also affirmed that the directives of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed to launch innovative initiatives will pave the way to achieve the emirate’s strategic plans. Al Shaibani expressed satisfaction for being assigned of this project, highly praising the level of cooperation with a global corporation like Microsoft.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft is working with the Government to help government bodies, citizen and resident of the United Arab Emirates accrue further achievements. He also added that the company’s first priority is to enhance ties with Dubai in order to realise its targets related to innovation by tapping into the digital technologies so as to improve the living standards of its people and enable institutions to seize new opportunities of growth and development.

Emirates launches Arabic mobile site

Emirates has launched an Arabic version of its mobile site. Customers using the Emirates mobile site in any language can book flights, check in online, upgrade their class of travel, as well as view and download Apple Passbook boarding passes to their smartphone.

The Arabic mobile platform has been rolled out simultaneously across 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa including the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan, among others.

Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations Centre for Emirates said: “Mobile device penetration in the Middle East and North Africa is steadily growing and we have been seeing strong usage on emirates.com from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Lebanon. In fact, almost two million people access emirates.com from those countries each month, and almost half of them access our site through their mobile devices. We saw a clear need for an Arabic mobile site which would allow us to significantly improve the customer experience.”

In addition to its newly launched Arabic mobile site, Emirates also has mobile sites in other languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Turkish. By the end of this year, the airline plans to roll out mobile sites enabled in additional languages, including Korean.

Earlier this year, after the overwhelming popularity of the Emirates App for iPhone, the airline extended its mobile App for the Android platform to serve its customers who use Android enabled devices. Emirates was also the first airline in the Middle East to launch an App for Apple Watch in April.

Lateefa AlWaalan is named Saudi Arabia's EY Entrepreneur Of The Year

Lateefa AlWaalan, founder and GM of Yatooq, an Arabic coffee startup, has been named Saudi Arabia’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) 2015.

AlWaalan was chosen from a group of 11 finalists* from 10 companies by the independent panel of judges. The judging criteria included entrepreneurial spirit, financial performance, strategic direction, social impact and influence. 

Fahad Altoaimi, Office Managing Partner, Riyadh and Entrepreneur Of The Year Leader, EY, said the award honours AlWaalan’s business achievements, innovation and contribution to her community. "Lateefa AlWaalan will join the Entrepreneur Of The Year award winners from over 50 countries at Monte Carlo in June 2015, where she will be inducted into the World Entrepreneur Of The Year Academy and will vie for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year award,” he said. 

According to the Yatooq website, blond spiced coffee is the way coffee is traditionally drunk in the Gulf, but has a long brewing process and can often have an inconsistent taste. "Arabic coffee is delicious to have but not so easy to make. The brewing process takes up to 30 minutes and is still done manually. One out of ten times we would perfect the coffee," states the 'About Us' section of the Yatooq website. "We wanted to know why, and from there it all started." 

Today, the Yatooq online store features a coffee maker and different blends of instant Arabic coffee, including versions with cloves and ginger. The products are also available at physical locations in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait.

EY’s EOY is a business award for entrepreneurs. The event has been running for 28 years by EY in 145 cities across 60 countries. The award makes a difference through the unique way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognises the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. EOY celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognising them through regional, national and global awards programmes in more than 145 cities in 60 countries.

In Saudi Arabia, EOY 2015 was held under the patronage of HE Dr Tawfiq Al Rabiah, Minister of Commerce and Industry, the Strategic Partner of the event.

Interested?

Read the Livejournal blog post about how Omani coffee is prepared.

Read a University of Washington alumni profile of Alwaalan.

*The other 10 finalists are: Ebrahim Aljassim from Hunger Station, Falah Aljarba from DB Security, Faris Alturki from Faris breakfast, Khalid Alkhudair from Glowork, Majed Althagafi from Ibtikar, Mohammed Suqer and Mohammed Al-Bahkali from Five Design Solutions, Naif Alasmari from Sugar Sprinkles, Rayan AlWabil from Rayz Co, Sahar Aldahash from The Learning Zone.

Cristal Group develops proprietary multilingual commission-free reservations tool

The Cristal Group will become the first hotel management company worldwide to develop its own zero commission based reservations tool that promises cheaper hotels.

A new multilingual website based on a proprietary booking engine will launch this month. According to Cristal's Chief Operating Officer Kamal Fakhoury, the new website will make it easier for customers to book Cristal Hotels, with extended language options that will include Arabic, and Chinese among other languages. 

“With hotels in Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Lebanon and more to come in Saudi Arabia, we are building an international client base and it is vital that we can communicate with potential customers in their language,” he said.

“Looking ahead, China and Russia have been identified as major growth markets for the future, with 140 million Chinese alone visiting overseas destinations in 2015 – while Germany remains a strong source market for destinations such as UAE.”

Further benefits of the new website will be competitive pricing, as the proprietary booking engine ensuring that hotels do not pay direct web booking commission and can pass this saving on to owners and customers. The new website will also feature a dedicated media, marketing and HR portal, he added.

“We will ensure we have international reach through partnering with global distribution experts, Travel click, but have determined the scope of the new brand website through intensive research that ultimately benefits both the client and the hotels.”

The Cristal Group was established in the UAE in 2007 followed by the British Virgin Islands in 2012 to deliver hospitality consultancy, technical services, asset management and brand management. Its vision is to be the premier business and leisure hotel operator in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.