Because of a lack of awareness of the destination, tour operators did not feature Qatar in 2013. Thanks to a great number of trade development activities, several dozens of tour operators now sell Qatar ! To increase the trade’s knowledge about Qatar, a comprehensive e-learning program has been launched to train French travel agents, and hundreds are now certified. In addition, many training sessions have been organised across the whole of France, training travel agents. Also, more than a hundred product managers and travel agents had the opportunity to discover the destination by themselves thanks to fam trips.

Communication in trade presse has also been very strong since 2013, with many campaigns promoting training and e-learning, as well as competitions. To celebrate Qatar’s second year at IFTM Top Resa trade show, 5.000 copies of a 8 pages mini guide were published in cooperation with one of the leading trade media in the French market.