Thousands of cosmetic salespeople are coming to Dubai armed with their best warpaint next week, with tourism chiefs expecting their arrival to generate Dh240 million for the emirate’s economy.
About 13,000 agents from the US-based cosmetics company Forever Living will arrive in the emirate, in addition to 1,000 people from Chinese direct sales company Nu Skin.
“It is important that they experience the best the city has to offer and we hope they become repeat visitors and active advocates for Dubai,” said Issam Kazim, the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing chief executive.
Emirates Group’s tour company Arabian Adventures, which hosted 14,500 NuSkin sales agents in 2014, will again handle the nine-day visit for the cosmetic companies.
Arizona-based Forever Living picked Dubai for its annual Global Rally with events spread across various hotels and the Dubai World Trade Centre.
The visitors hail from 50 countries with about 30 per cent of them from the region.
Arabian Adventures will handle the itineraries of 3,500 people whose trips will be paid for by Forever Living.
Hotels, including JW Marriott Marquis, The Westin, and St Regis and W Hotel at Al Habtoor City, will host the group. Most of them are flying with Emirates.
More than 80 coaches and 75 SUVs will be deployed to transport the group.
“Transport is the most important aspect as people don’t like to wait,” said Justine Thomas-Butler, head of the meetings, incentives and events division at Arabian Adventures.
“We try to minimise people’s time on the coach because they want to experience the destination.”
The US marketing company holds its incentive travel trip Global Rally each year, bringing together its top Forever business owners to attend workshops and training.
They can receive between US$500 and $12,500 to spend during the trip or after depending on their sales activity.
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