How to expand your Tourism business in Iran? Part 1

The below article is a university assignment done for MBA course "Regional and Global Business Strategy" by me (Emad Honarparvar). I have discussed the Emirate Group corp as my case study, supposing this company is up to expand its business operations and activities in Iran.

The Assignment is in 9 pages to I split it up in 3 parts:
Part one an introduction on the Emirates Group which tries to find out the group potentials and character to proceed with a proposal to the firm.

the second part focuses on the proposal to the Emirates Group and the third part is talking about Iran's tourism industry and challenges Emirates Group will and have to face in Iran.

Part One: Introduction of Emirates Group

The Emirates Group is a public international travel and tourism multinational holding company, headquartered in Dubai. The Emirates Group comprises Dnata, an aviation services company providing ground handling services at 17 airports and Emirates Airline, the largest airline in the Middle East, with flies to over 100 destinations, operating a fleet of over 130 wide-bodied aircraft. The airline has 170 aircraft on order worth US$ 58 billion.
The Emirates Group has a turnover of approximately US$12 billion and employs over 48,000 employees across all its 50 business units and associated firms, making it one of the biggest employers in the Middle East according to the company’s website. The company, likely to many other giant businesses and power leads in Dubai, is wholly-owned by the Government of Dubai directly under the Investment Corporation of Dubai.
The Emirates Group has sub-divisions and subsidiaries to help its growth sustainable and let the company to play as a key member in the region’s Travel, Transportation and Tourism industry. These divisions include:
Emirates Airlines: A major Airline in Middle East known as national airline of UAE, with roughly 2000 flights per week (stat 2009, average). The airline has started its activity from the beginning years of Emirates Group’s establishment with only two medium size airplanes, one Boeing 737 and one Airbus 300. Nowadays they have 131 aircrafts including 80 Boeing 777 which makes it the second largest airline regarding capacity for passengers.
In the financial year 2008-09 passenger numbers reached 22.7 million, representing an increase of 7.1% over last year. The airline's profits however were down 72% for the 2008/09 fiscal year. Its profit of 1.49bn dirham ($406m; £255m) for the year to March 31 compared with a 5.3bn dirham profit for the previous year.
Emirates Sky Cargo: Emirates SkyCargo is a cargo carrier operating from Dubai International Airport. The SkyCargo division operates nine aircraft; Airbus A310 and Boeing 747 freighters, with a further 10 freighter aircraft on order; two Airbus A380 and eight Boeing 777 aircraft. Emirates SkyCargo also use the cargo capacity of the passenger fleet. In the 2008 financial year, Emirates SkyCargo carried 1,408,300 tons, an improvement of 9.8% compared to the previous year (stats from the company’s official website)
Dnata: Dnata is an aviation services company, comprising Dnata Airport Operations, the largest ground and passenger handling company at Dubai International Airport, Dnata Cargo, responsible for dealing with much of the 1.3 million tons of cargo passing through Dubai International Airport, and Dnata Agencies, a Dubai based travel agency, acting on behalf of a number of major carries, including Aeroflot, Aer Lingus, Airblue, British Airways, Swissair and United Airlines.
Changi Airport services: Changi International Airport Services (CIAS) offers a comprehensive range of ground handling services to more than 30 scheduled airlines in Singapore.
Emirates Catering and Emirates Engineering
Mercator: Mercator is a global provider of business technology solutions, delivering business transformation, process improvement and return on investment to more than 150 customers in five continents.
The IT division of Emirates Group launched in 1985 to serve the business technology requirements of Emirates and Dnata, but is now a fully-fledged worldwide provider of airline and airport solutions. The IT division employs more than 2,000 staff in Dubai, with additional resources in India.

Tourism Department: including Emirates Holidays, Emirates Tours, EMQuest, and Emirates Hotels and resorts. The last division established in late 2007, to build and serve high profile hotels and holiday resorts.

Key to Success

 
In my point of view, the main reason of rapid growth in the Emirates Group lies in the UAE approach for development: Building high quality and upon future necessities infrastructure. And we can never neglect the fact; The Emirates Group has been a key issue in this approach itself. So the key to success in this group is they have been a part of plan to new face of Dubai in the world, providing other businesses such as Trade, Tourism, Flight transit etc, with a reliable and sustainable transportation infrastructure.









in the next part I suppose the Emirates Group wants to expand its operations in Iran and will discuss such decision how can be put to work and be successful. please follow up and feel free to comment.