The launch of ‘Yas Expert’, a new destination training and certification programme aimed at travel agents, has been announced by Experience Hub, the trade and promotion body of Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.
Within just three weeks of the programme being launched, over 1,000 travel agents have already signed up to take part in it.
The programme will take place online and includes modules on the island’s award-winning attractions, itinerary planning and leisure experiences, with further topics dedicated to catering to those travelling for events such as Diwali soon to be added to the syllabus.
Those agents who successfully complete all of the modules will be certified as ‘Yas Experts’’ and will also be able to sample a variety of incentives and become part of exclusive familiarisation trips in which they will be able to conclude their education with first-hand experience of the destination.
Incentives to complete the programme include the likes of experience vouchers and the chance to win both instant and mega-prizes such as an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Yas Island.
Each market will take part in the first mega-draw at the close of this month.
Experience Hub’s vice president of sales Bruno Wiley says that initiatives such as Yas Expert demonstrate the continually fresh approaches taken by the company in order to continue to enhance its relationships with travel agents so that they become more familiar with Yas Island, which itself continues to grow and change.
Wiley adds that by allowing its travel professionals network to become experts on the market, Experience Hub is able to support its main business priority of connecting the unique destination to international markets, but even more importantly, its partners are allowed to get the necessary support to evolve their product offering and generate leads.
The interactive online course currently consists of five modules, which should take around an hour each to complete.
With the continual evolution of Yas Island products, a greater number of modules will continue to be added.
It is currently available for travel agents in India, the UK and the GCC, and it will soon be made accessible to agents in China and Russia.
There is a strong and rapidly increasing demand for bespoke destination training programmes within the travel trade, and visits to Yas Island by tourists from not only the United Arab Emirates and the rest of the Middle East but also from all over the world are continuing to grow.
The most recently available figures show that a record-breaking 28 million visits were made to Yas Island in 2018, and this number is expected to increase further by another 5% this year.
Around 30 million tourists are expected to visit Yas Island this year.
Anyone planning to visit Yas Island would be well-advised to take out travel insurance in order to guard against cancelled flights, stolen property or falling ill while on holiday.
