A delegation led by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) attended an exclusive ‘Executive Summit’ recently held at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, USA. The event offered DCT Abu Dhabi and its partners, Etihad Airways, Miral, ADNEC, and Aldar, the opportunity to explore Google’s main campus as well as giving exclusive insight into the tech giant’s work culture, technology, and innovations.
As part of DCT Abu Dhabi’s mission to position Abu Dhabi as a thriving tourism destination of distinction, the summit aimed to further coordinate the commercial activity of all attending organisations by reviewing with Google shared best practice and process efficiencies, a joint approach to positioning Abu Dhabi as one of the world’s top destinations.
Sessions were organised around the unique working culture at Google, on digital brand building and the variety of Google travel products, as well as trends that are shaping the industry. Google also organised an exclusive presentation by Visit California, as a way of sharing experiences among tourism boards, with particular emphasis on organisational structure, objectives and marketing strategy.
The second day of the Executive Summit was dedicated to discussion and interactive sessions on Abu Dhabi’s tourism ecosystem and fostering collaboration between different entities, with the help of Google’s system intelligence and technology.
Among a number of agreed action points from the summit was a shared data initiative intended to significantly bolster the tourism ecosystem of the Emirate, as well as further cooperation on consistently presenting the destination brand.
Steve Copestake, Acting Executive Director of Marketing and Communication, DCT Abu Dhabi commented: “Google is an integral partner in our mission to continuously grow Abu Dhabi’s culture and tourism proposition. Working with our industry partners, we have embarked upon a data analysis and sharing initiative that is unprecedented in scale in the region and that will result in further meaningful insights into key tourist behaviours and motivators. It is through strategic international partnerships such as this, with the best in the field, that we look to achieve our target of 8.5 million visitors per year by 2021.”
Pierric Duthoit, Branding Sector Lead, Google MENA said: “It was our pleasure to host, for the first time, several entities from Abu Dhabi. The commitment of senior officials and their curiosity made these two days both interesting and productive. No doubt this is a fresh start for a broader collaboration.”
Executive Summits are only available to Google’s top clients and their objective is to introduce partners to Google’s values and thinking on a number of relevant topics, from innovation and machine learning, to industry trends and data automation. They also focus on how to improve organisations and processes, as well as on gaining competitive edge and thought leadership.
