Etihad Launches "Why Ey?" Campaign In China

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, is launching a "Why EY?" campaign in China which aims to motivate and reward key business partners such as travel agencies and ticketing agents through incentive and promotional programs.

The recent "Why EY?" campaign workshop, held at Beijing's Kerry Centre, drew more than 60 representatives from different travel and ticketing agencies who participated in this trade partner gathering.

Tang Hoe Kun, the country manager for China of Etihad Airways, said that trade partners had played a vital role in driving Etihad's growth in China and currently nine out of every ten tickets are sold through these channels. He added that he was very pleased that they now had this opportunity to thank them with their incentive programs.

Etihad recently rolled out a series of incentive programs exclusively for travel and ticketing agencies including the 24-hour deal promotion and various other programs which reward those who sell the most tickets. Etihad will also begin mystery telephone interviews, and will present gifts to those who do the best job selling Etihad's products to their customers.

To achieve higher sales growth in the coming year, Etihad will further improve its network performance by reducing the connection time of a number of key international routes, such as Turkey, Athens, Cairo, America, and Canada, from the current more than ten hours to between two and three hours at its Abu Dhabi hub.

Etihad will also be opening more routes to popular destinations next year. Besides the recent Cape Town route which will provide more convenience to people going to see the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the airline will extend its network to Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan next spring.

Etihad began its four-flight-per-week service to China from Abu Dhabi in March 2008.