Over 3,000 families visited the 11-day festival daily, making Abha a premier tourism destination in Arab world

Abha, Dubai, 21st August, 2010: Organizers of Abha Shopping Festival have hailed the role of Virtue PR & Marketing Communications, one of the fastest growing PR consultancies in the MENA region, in driving the success of Abha Shopping Festival, the 11-day festival that was concluded recently in Abha.

Abha Training Summer Festival, which was held under the slogan “We meet for a higher aim” was organized by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) at the Abha International Exhibitions Centre and Abha Palace Hotel in Aseer, KSA.
 
HE Engineer Abdul Karim Bin Salem Al Hunainy, Undersecretary of Aseer, presented a trophy to Firas Sleem, Regional Director of Virtue PR & Marketing Communications.

Firas Sleem said: “We thank the organizers of Abha Shopping Festival for this award. This festival was a translation of the Kingdom’s vision to invest in edutainment through well-rounded and tailored tourism programmes. We developed a multi-pronged, cross-media PR campaign to meet the goal of raising awareness and enhancing visibility for the festival across the region, and we are pleased that our efforts yielded fruit.”

The festival attracted visitors from KSA as well as the whole of the Gulf, in keeping with the Aseer’s goal of making it a destination for family tourism in the Gulf.

Abha Summer Festival attracted a large number of visitors from GCC countries. Program hosts and moderators at the festival were high-caliber people with international credentials.

Abha tops the list of family tourism destinations in the region 

Abha, KSA, 3 August, 2010: Abha Summer Training Festival, part of Abha Shopping Festival, which was held for 11 days in Abha, has received overwhelming response from family tourists from KSA and the entire Gulf region in its inaugural edition, with more than 33,000 families attending the festival.

This success can be attributed to the organizers’ efforts to create world class facilities and activities catering to different sections of families, customised for Gulf residents. Children and parents were happy to attend these activities which combined entertainment with education.

HE Engineer Abdul Karim Bin Salem Al Hunainy, Undersecretary of Aseer, said the overwhelming response was a clear evidence of the value of the festival and a reflection of the hard work and planning that went into the event. “This festival is a success story that could be replicated in other places because it succeeded in providing a model to what family tourists really want from a festival.”

Dr. Ali Sharab, Founder of Forsan Al Hayat, organizer of the festival, said: “We want to make this festival a world class event that will position Abha as a tourism destination offering distinctive edutainment activities to visitors from all over the kingdom and the Gulf region and the Arab world at a later stage. The ideal climate of Abha gives it an edge in topping the list of tourism destinations in the region.”

The success of Abha Training Summer Festival was driven by the wide experience of its organizers as well as the close collaboration with government and private sectors in Aseer area and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abha Training Summer Festival, which was held under the slogan “we meet for a higher aim” was organized by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) and Forsan Al Hayat at the Abha International Exhibitions Centre and Abha Palace Hotel in Aseer, KSA.

Saudi Arabia – Abha is host to the Abha Summer Training Festival which is taking place within the Abha Shopping Festival.

During the first week of the Abha International Exhibition, a series of seminars and workshops made the festival evenings enlightening and useful. Regional experts and professors have put their talents in the hands of visitors in an interactive atmosphere full of affection and simplicity.

The audience who came from all parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the GCC countries, and many cities and capitals of the Arab world, have attended open meetings with a group of Arab experts.

In the first evening, Mr. Nasser Aldos attended a seminar on the art of speech and presentation, ranging from the stages of development in human history, sciences and technology.

Dr. Ali Sharab, the General Secretary of Abha Summer Training Festival said that the week-long activities had “A high turnout of visitors from Saudi and other GCC countries in general, thanks to the extensive promotional campaign held prior to the launch. In addition, SMS messages were sent to the public, professors, intellectuals and other experts on a daily basis throughout the week. The SMS campaign was used for the first time to promote a festival in Abha.”

A psychological treatment which takes advantage of the principles of Chinese acupuncture, but without the use of needles was demonstrated during the Festival.

In the final evening of the first week of the festival, a seminar by Professor Mohamed Maghawry involving memory techniques was held.

Professor Mohamed Maghawry said that the mental map is a way to collate information in a form closer to the mind. The mental map can be used to write notes, or summaries of books and different subjects. They are also useful to companies, universities and proved very effective in writing the information in the form of lines.

The session mentioned the life stories of successful individuals some with special needs and disabilities, who continued in their the pursuit of their dreams and achieving their goals in life despite their disabilities.

In addition to these seminars and events, Abha festival included distinct bouquet of events, competitions, exhibitions and promotional programmes.