Etihad to develop business events-oriented services

EITHAD Airways is using the Gulf Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Exhibition (GIBTM) as its sounding board to offer business events-oriented services.

“The essence is Eithad is very much like the brand of Abu Dhabi , which is about respect and service of travelers. It is a very personalised service to all of our customers,” said David Granville, Etihad Sales Opportunities Manager. “We seek to take those and apply to our MICE market. We don’t have a certified MICE products in mind as of yet but we are here (GIBTM) to listen to what people want, to understand what they want to be featured to put relationships in place and systems to back it up.”

Granville said it will take as short as three months to roll out these products. “We have the right resources provided we get the right returns,” he summed up.

EVP for sales and services, Geert Boven, said the Gulf’s global meetings and incentives is growing fast and attracting increased international interest and Etihad is committed to growing the market.

While still awaiting feedback from the industry which would be considered as foundation to the niche products, Granville already had a general idea of what these should be. Incentives are a once-in-a-lifetime event and special. Thus they should be delivered differently in every way.

“We would like to work with incentive designers to make us part of this experience in a way that we personalise our service to individuals. We could do that for exclusive groups of people in ways that we can combine some of the assets that we have,” he said.

Etihad was the exclusive official airline for GIBTM 2008.