Luxury Travel Advisor - June 2008 - (Page 53)

ates is wholly owned by the Government of Dubai, it’s run like a private company. “Every year we have to present a budget that says we are going to make money and it has to be accepted or else they wouldn’t have us as managers,” he says. How does Emirates remain profitable and make money at a time when many airlines are floundering? Page says that the company has always had a philosophy that it will never compromise on quality. And while it tries to be competitive on fares with other carriers, its concern isn’t to offer the lowest price, but instead to put an emphasis on its service. “You’ll never see an ad in this country talking about price, ever,” he tells Luxury Travel Advisor. “Our philosophy is that if you advertise on price you commoditize your product and it actually lowers people’s expectations of what service is going to be. We always talk about the service and new products we have onboard, [the cultural diversity of our] crew and our new aircraft.” A high level of service is vital to Emirates’ success and standards are kept up because management recruits its cabin crew on threeyear contracts. “At the end of three years, we decide whether we want to offer another contract to them and they decide whether they want to accept it. That way, we keep crew who are still enjoying the job and love giving good service,” says Page. And although Emirates is based in Dubai, it prefers to be thought of as an international airline. Case in point: 145 nationalities are represented by its cabin staff, providing a true variety of cultural backgrounds. “That is what gives us enormous strength, that we can be culturally sensitive to people of all nationalities. For example, when we fly to Germany, we will always have a German dish on the menu, or to Italy, Italian dishes, but we’ll also make sure we have crew of that nationality as well,” says Page. Delivering strong service is key to Emirates’ marketing strategy. “We have an extremely high rebooking profile, something like 90 percent [of people who’ve tried us] will come back again. For us, the trick has always been to have someone try us once, then they’ll always come back and they’ll tell other people about us.” says Page. While it may appear that Emirates is ex- NIGEL PAGE is based in New York City. He is pictured here at the Top of the Rock. www.luxuryta.com LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR 53 http://www.luxuryta.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Luxury Travel Advisor - June 2008

Luxury Travel Advisor - June 2008 Contents Publisher's Letter Editor's Letter Paris Shanghai New York Takeover Hotels Townhouse Galleria Florida Spas BVI Bliss Athens, Greece Rainforest Excursions Nigel Page The Pulse Jetset Report Just Back On Location Sightings Agent Access Source List

Luxury Travel Advisor - June 2008

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