Saudi, UAE and Qatar Travellers Fuel 145% Rise in World Cup Jet Demand

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is the Morning Drive, it is Mira Business FM. Luxury travel now and demand from the Gulf surging, unsurprisingly, because the backdrop is obviously the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the moment. Private aviation company and their digital marketplace, XO, are reporting a 145% rise in multi-city travel inquiries across the US, Canada and Mexico, where the World Cup is. Travelers from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, increasingly therefore, combining football, business and family, travel into longer North American itineraries. We're going to look at the details of this now. Youssef Mouallem is the Chief Business Officer at Vista. Joins me in the studio. Good to see you.

**Youssef Mouallem** (0:46)
Good morning, Tim. Thank you for having me.

**Tim Elliott** (0:47)
It's good to have you here. So that's a pretty, pretty encouraging increase, 145%.
It's a kind of staggering figure, I think. If you add in World Cup fever at this point in time, it kind of suggests that the one destination trip is almost a thing of the past for the luxury traveler.

**Youssef Mouallem** (1:08)
Yeah. I think we can say that is an emerging trend.

**Tim Elliott** (1:12)
Yeah.

**Youssef Mouallem** (1:12)
And we've seen that around the football tournament currently. Well, we've been seeing this trend emerge over the last couple of years, where people are combining business with luxury travel, with sporting events. But speaking specifically about the football tournament taking place now, we've seen this massive increase in demand for multi-city. So we're seeing GCC customers looking at trips to North America, starting from Canada, US and Mexico, to attend some of these events. But also we're seeing an increase in trip duration, which suggests that people are actually using this sporting event as a cornerstone for bigger trips and longer travel.

**Tim Elliott** (1:56)
I was going to ask you that, if people are looking at longer stays. So they are looking at substantially longer.

**Youssef Mouallem** (2:01)
So definitely people are looking at longer stay. Also what we're seeing is about a 13% increase in trip length.
Yeah, which suggests that people kind of do a little bit of sporting, some travel, visiting different destinations on the continent.

**Tim Elliott** (2:15)
Some family stuff.

**Youssef Mouallem** (2:16)
Yeah, family stuff and some business meetings.

**Tim Elliott** (2:19)
Okay.

**Youssef Mouallem** (2:19)
And I said that's a trend that we've been observing over the last couple of years in Southeast Asia, in Europe, in North America, where we're seeing business travelers extending their stays and latching on maybe a family weekend at the front end or the back end, or going and exploring new cities, not just business meetings.

**Tim Elliott** (2:38)
Okay. So how much demand are you seeing from this reach, from Saudi, the UAE, from Qatar, from Bahrain?

**Youssef Mouallem** (2:44)
Yeah. So we're seeing an increase across the whole GCC, but three most pronounced increases we're seeing are from UAE, Saudi and Qatar.

**Tim Elliott** (2:51)
Right.

**Youssef Mouallem** (2:52)
And for these three cities, we've seen a 5% increase in overall demand versus what we've seen previously. And namely, we're seeing a lot of, so far, we've seen a lot of increase and interest into Toronto and into Miami because of the Qatar opening game in Toronto and Saudi's opening game in Miami. And we congratulate both teams on their great performance in the opening games. I look forward to seeing them progress through.

**Tim Elliott** (3:20)
Qatar particularly, that was, that's a tremendous result.

**Youssef Mouallem** (3:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, phenomenal.

**Tim Elliott** (3:26)
Yeah, so travelers from the UAE, from Saudi, from Qatar, kind of blending football and business meetings and family.
So longer, kind of single, long duration trips, I suppose, really. Is this about convenience? Is it a sign that travelers, regional travelers, want like a mobile office lifestyle, even when they're supposed to be on holiday?

**Youssef Mouallem** (3:51)
Yes. So we're seeing this change in behavior as well. I think in our previous discussion we touched on, we're seeing this kind of global working space evolution with our customer base, where they want to work from whatever they are, whether they are on the airplane, and our fleet does offer this facility, or whether they are at their holiday home, they need to kind of get in a couple days of work, or whether they are at their office and they want to blend some leisure and some luxury time. So, we're seeing the same behavior, but it's amplified by this global sporting event. So, that is like the centerpiece, but it's the same behavior. And what we see as well is this need for flexibility and last minute kind of setting the plans.
GCC travelers predominantly like to book their trips late or closer to the trip time. That's an observed behavior that we have. And the private jet industry lends itself to this kind of behavior, because you'll organize the trip around your needs. You're not bound to a fixed schedule, to a fixed routing, to a fixed trip time.