Karryon chats exclusively with Marhaba Global Head Shahab Al Awadhi about the company’s plans for Australia, the world and bringing “new Arabian hospitality” to its customers.
It already has a presence at Australia’s five busiest airports and numerous major hubs across the globe, with its ‘Meet & Greet’ services. It also operates lounges in the UAE, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
But Marhaba, which is part of one of the world’s largest air service providers, dnata, is eying more.
In a recent interview with Karryon, Marhaba Global Head Shahab Al Awadhi said he wants to utilise what he calls “new Arabian hospitality” to expand the business to include an end-to-end air travel experience.
“One thing that I want to do in the future is to start essentially creating a one-stop-shop experience for customers across the world across our network,” he says.
“Dnata is one of the leading air service providers, not only in Australia but across the globe as well – and we have a very wide presence of different services, whether it’s catering, passenger handling or ground services. And so by being able to leverage that network, we want to try to expand our reach further.
“We want to create an end-to-end experience so that you feel that you are taken care of across the entirety of your journey as opposed to just at an airport level.”
As an example, you might have New York-bound customers who are travelling through Dubai. Marhaba would aim to take care of the passengers across their entire journey.
“So that’s something that we’re able to do and it’s a promise that I’d like to work on as part of that new Arabian hospitality, where we say that moments matter and your time matters as well.”
More Marhaba Down Under
Marhaba opened its first and so far only lounge in Australia, at Melbourne Airport, in 2017. The lounge is open to premium flyers of certain airlines, as well as pay-as-you-go customers – for around AU$70 per person.
“We have grown quite significantly since then. Currently, we typically cater to around 300 to 400 passengers a day – whether it’s direct to customers, airline customers that we serve, or corporate customers as well,” Alwadhi tells Karryon.
“When we looked at our 2019 figures compared to where we are today, we have more than doubled our growth in terms of capacity. So that’s more than 200 per cent growth in terms of people using our lounges in Melbourne.
“Of course, we’re always looking to expand within the Australian market as well.”
In the meantime, the Dubai-based business is aiming “to bring that same level of focus to our Meet & Greet services” that it launched in the past 12 months at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide airports.
Who uses Marhaba?
Available for inbound, outbound or transit passengers, Alwadhi says the service is useful for “someone who prefers a bit of security, an isolated journey through an airport since COVID, or whether you just like the convenience factor, maybe for yourself or loved ones”.
He adds that Marhaba typically sees three types of customers in Australia and internationally.
“We have leisure travel, whether it’s individuals, couples or families. We have seniors – and these are purchased not necessarily by seniors themselves, but from family members who buy on their behalf. And finally, we have business travellers …. again, purchased either through individuals themselves, to ease the journey… or business partners buying on behalf of their customers.”
And like its lounge footprint, Marhaba aims to expand its Meet & Greet operations “across Australia as well as the rest of the world”.
“I can’t go into much more detail than that at this point,” the Marhaba boss says about possible new locations for lounges or Meet & Greet services in Australia.
“However, it is always something that we’re looking to expand on, particularly in the lounge space.”
So watch this space.
For more information on Marhaba, click here.
dnata recently picked up the gong for World’s Leading Air Travel Service Provider 2023 at the World Travel Awards. Check out all the winners in our wrap here.
