portal – StartUpArabia

Hotels.com Launches Arabic Website For The Middle East

May 5, 2009May 5, 2009 MMM 9 Comments

Hotels.com, one of the leading hotel accommodation booking sites in the world, has announced the launch of its Arabic website in the Middle East. The website is available at http://fanadeq.hotels.com and uses IP based country recognition, an Arabic-language interface and local currency pricing and payment methods.

Hotels.com, is part of the Expedia group, and currently operates 52 global sites. Expedia announced in the summer of last year that it would be launching a dedicated travel portal for the Middle East within the following 12 months, and it seems this is the result of that effort.

Covering the key markets in the Middle East, the new website aims to offer competitive, value for money rates at over 100,000 hotels worldwide. As well as the hotel booking function, the site also offers in-depth hotel information including Microsoft mapping capabilities and property facility information. The site also includes destination information and customers reviews all in Arabic.

Nigel Pocklington, Managing Director of Hotels.com commented, “By launching our new website in Arabic, we are committed to unlocking the full potential of the Middle East market. Our goal is to offer our customers an accommodation booking service with extensive choices, great value prices and excellent customer service.”

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) barometer, the Middle East is already the world’s largest driver of travel, tourism and hospitality, with the sector fuelling the region’s current annual tourism growth of 11% per annum.

The Middle East has seen a steady growth in e-commerce over the last few years with an increasing number of consumers using the internet to buy products and services. One of the fastest growing categories for e-commerce across the globe is travel as customers are increasingly choosing the internet to look for the best deals.

D1G Acquires Popular Jordanian Forum E7ki

August 3, 2008August 3, 2008 MMM 10 Comments

D1G recently announced that it has acquired the popular Jordanian forum “E7ki“, one of the biggest in Jordan, to integrate it into the D1G network of websites.

The E7ki forum now operates under the D1G domain name, and is now in public beta, awaiting to be relaunched with a new design and more features.

E7ki is the fifth acquisition by D1G after websites like: “Ya Sater”, 7asnaa, 66g and “Seen Jeem”.

This acquisition follows a trend that some Arab web companies like D1G, Maktoob and others are following; acquiring popular websites and forums to quickly boost their number of users, as well as the page views and visits they generate, in order to attract more online advertisers, thereby generating more advertising income for them.

Cinéma Tunisien, The Portal For Tunisian Cinema

August 1, 2008August 1, 2008 MMM

Cinéma Tunisien is a recently launched portal dedicated to Cinema in Tunisia.

The portal aims to be an online database of information on Tunisian movies, directors, actors, critics, producers and associations involved with cinema making in the country.

It also provides details about the history of Cinema in Tunisia, and how it has evolved over the years; Also listing the different cinematic festivals and gatherings taking place throughout the country.

Cinema fans can also find the latest news, interviews, upcoming movie openings, as well as what movies are currently being shown in cinemas around Tunisia. They also have the possibility to connect with each other in the discussion forum, and to rate and review their favorite movies.

The portal is in French only for the time being. Hopefully it will keep growing into a very interesting resource documenting all sides and aspects of Tunisian Cinema.

# Cinéma Tunisien

Sukuk.net, Online Islamic Finance Portal

July 15, 2008July 15, 2008 MMM 1 Comment

Sukuk.net is a new online financial portal dedicated to “Sukuk” (Islamic Bonds), and Islamic financing, that aims to be the definitive source of information on the global Sukuk market and the premier online destination for the Sukuk industry providing investors, financial services professionals, researchers and institutions with up to date market information.

It also hopes to go one step further by providing investors with all the tools necessary to understand the market and analyse the competition and market data; and assisting firms in developing strategies, market forecasting and identifying new business and investment opportunities.

Users can track global Sukuk activity, market data and register for market tracking analysis tools. The website’s Sukuk Wire also provides an up to the minute feed of the latest news and information on global Sukuk.

The launch of this portal is in response to a growing number of investors and enterprises seeking Shariah compliant funding and general public interest in Islamic finance; The Sukuk market, in particular, is seeing rapid growth and Sukuk paper has the advantage of competitive pricing as a risk-mitigation structure.

Sukuk.net is a Dubai and Jeddah based initiative formed through a joint venture between Siraj Capital Ltd., a leading Saudi based Islamic asset management company, and alClick Ltd., a leading provider of online advertising and marketing services in the Gulf region.

# Sukuk.net

Interview With Twffaha Co-Founder & CEO Ashraf Mansoor

July 14, 2008July 14, 2008 MMM 4 Comments

Before anything, I’d really like to thank Ashraf Mansoor, the co-founder and CEO of Twffaha, the job portal for Arab women, which was previously reviewed here, for taking some of his time to answer our questions about Twffaha, and give us more insight into the startup, how things have been going so far, as well as sharing some tips and advice for other entrepreneurs.

How would you describe Twffaha in your own words?

Twffaha is an endeavor to endorse and promote recruiting women in the Middle East. It is an online job portal that strives to provide women job seekers with state-of-the art tools, and tips that will help them unearth jobs in accordance with their skills and qualifications. A platform for employers to land their next greatest prospect, and a belief that women are an underrated asset that if recruited properly will guide to economic growth and sustainability in the Middle East.

How did you get the idea for Twffaha? And what made you feel passionate about this specific idea?

The idea for Twffaha came in late 2007. We came across different studies that showed the rate of recruiting women in the region is far beyond the international rates. At the time we were designing a job portal for a different purpose, and then we thought we need to find a niche in order to compete with the numerous job portals in the market, that’s when we decided to launch an exclusive women job portal, and came up with the name Twffaha.

What difficulties or challenges did you face making Twffaha a reality?

As an Arabic startup you are destined to face challenges. The atmosphere is not conductive for startups. One of the problems was finding the right people who believed in the idea and who can be a driving force. We also encountered major outages during our public beta that forced us to reconsider our infrastructure, and find new reliable partners. We believe problems are an integral part of a startup structure, so we embrace them.

Travel Yolk, Travel Industry Online Recruitment Portal

June 15, 2008June 15, 2008 MMM 5 Comments

Dubai-based travel industry technology solution provider TechTuners recently launched a new online recruitment portal named Travel Yolk that aims to address the staffing requirements of the Middle East’s travel industry.

Travel Yolk is built much like you’d expect a career website to be, providing the possibility for job seekers from the travel industry to build their CVs online, look for new job opportunities in the industry throughout the Middle East, get email notifications of interesting job vacancies and apply directly through the website.

On the other hand, employers can post their job offers and search the database of travel professionals to find people who best suit their vacant job positions.

As with most job sites, the service is free for job seekers, while employers will have to pay for posting their career opportunities. Different plans are provided to suit employers’ needs and activity.

An online forum where employees can meet their potential employers and vice versa should be added to the portal soon; making it easier and more effective for both sides to connect.

The website is available in English only for the time being.

# Travel Yolk

CarDaleel, Online Arab Auto Trading Service

May 9, 2008May 9, 2008 MMM 1 Comment

CarDaleel, is a newly launched service based in Jordan, that aims to be an online auto trading hub for people all around the Arab world.

Users can list their cars for sale, including all necessary technical details about them, as well as their state and age, to make them easier to search for and find; photos of the cars can also be included.
On the other hand, users looking to buy a car can go through the cars listed on the website, by country, by make and model, or use the advanced search to find cars based on different criteria of their choice; once they find a car they’re interested in, they can directly contact the seller through the site.

Auto-dealers can also use the service to list their available cars for sale directly on the site, therefore adding a new sales channel to their business.

The interface is in Arabic only for the time being, but an English version is planned soon. The service is completely free for all users, both individuals and auto-dealers.

CarDaleel was founded and launched in Jordan by Khaled Salah, Khamis Siksek and Hamzeh Abu Zakham.

# CarDaleel

Microsoft And LINKdotNET Launch New MSN Maghreb Portal

April 24, 2008April 24, 2008 MMM 5 Comments

Microsoft has launched a new French-language portal for its MSN service, called MSN Maghreb, geared towards the Arab Maghreb region which will provide the latest news and entertainment for users in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

The project is a joint venture with LINKdotNET, a subsidiary of Orascom, with which they already launched MSN Arabia in the past, and who currently operate that portal and will operate this new one too.

MSN Arabia, which was launched back in October 2001, attracts around two million page views a day and 2.7 million Hotmail subscribers; and with MSN Maghreb, Microsoft and LINKdotNET are hoping to tap into the rest of the Arab population from the mainly Francophone North African Maghreb region, and of course by doing that, consequently get into local advertisers’ pockets.

The announcement was made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Orascom board member Khaled Bichara at a press conference in Skhirat, Morocco, earlier today.

The new portal is accessible at www.maghreb.msn.com

restate.ae, Dubai Real Estate Portal

April 24, 2008April 24, 2008 MMM 4 Comments

restate.ae is a web real estate portal dedicated to freehold and leasehold properties in Dubai, with the goal to act as a hub and bring people with different real estate needs together, whether they’re looking to live in Dubai, invest in real estate or sell properties.

The portal has a very nice, simple and usable design, integrating a wealth of features put together to provide users with in-depth real estate solutions, customized and advanced search to find what exactly suits their needs, access to other users’ opinions, neighborhood ratings, videos of properties and projects, the possibility to join discussions with other users, as well as the latest real estate news in the UAE.

restate.ae also offers agencies the possibility to list all their properties on the website, and through an administration interface manage their profiles, their properties, and assign agents to them.

All properties agencies list on the portal are then automatically republished to Google Real Estate.

It’s obvious that with the huge real estate boom taking place in Dubai, restate.ae has a really important and useful job to do, making life easier for everyone approaching this market.

restate.ae was launched in 2007 by Web 2.0 consultancy company SpinBits, and all its services are currently free, both for users and agencies.

# restate.ae