Establishing Dubai as a world-class tourist destination was more than a mission for His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai and UAE Vice President and Prime Minister; it was at the heart of Dubai’s Tourism Vision for 2020. The vision is a strategic roadmap with the key objective of attracting 20 million visitors per year to the UAE. According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, the need to fill more than 18,000 tourism jobs over the next year is needed to meet the UAE’s goal of becoming a world-class tourism destination.

To help meet the nation’s employment demand, Dubai College of Tourism (DCT) was established to drive professional excellence in the tourism industry. DCT strives to help students discover their potential and gain practical experience through on-the-job training, internships and work placements.

Project Request

Leading the opening of the new college, Academic Director Michael Petrillose, Ph.D., understood he needed a strategic admission plan that would enable DCT to efficiently and effectively recruit students for the class of 2018.

“Opening a new college comes with many challenges and I selected EAG for this project knowing the team had a deep knowledge of admissions along with professional experience opening multiple college campuses.”

   – Michael Petrillose, Academic Director, Dubai College of Tourism, UAE

Project Deliverables

  • Design a visibility outreach plan
  • Establish a communications plan for 2018
  • Identify areas for improvement for DCT’s website, advertising and social media plans
  • Establish a plan for building an admissions office operation
  • Develop a policies and procedures manual
  • Integrate a Student Information System into Admissions

Our Approach

Discover – Through extensive research, EAG conducted a review of the UAE’s higher education landscape as well as a competitive market analysis. We facilitated student surveys evaluating DCT’s website, social media and communication plans. In addition, DCT was in the initial stages of configuring their new student information system and requested EAG conduct an in-depth evaluation of the system’s capabilities for recruitment and marketing functionality.

Strategize – From the discovery phase, we developed a comprehensive marketing, communication and recruitment plan which will allow DCT to accomplish its enrollment objectives. Building a strong admissions foundation is critical for success. Our team created policy and procedures manuals, tour training materials, presentations, How-Do-I’s and a multi-year staffing model. Our IT team worked with Dubai College of Tourism’s SIS vendor to establish an extensive requirements document and data dictionary.

Execute – The EAG team then gathered these insights and worked together to create a unified and consistent roadmap for meeting the project deliverables while keeping in mind the client’s timeline, budget and available resources.

Outcome

“From the start of the project, Ken and his team exceeded my expectations. They quickly grasped the scope of the project and provided a well-organized and detailed project plan. EAG met all deadlines and delivered outstanding work. Members of the Dubai Government were impressed with the depth and detail of EAG’s analysis and recommendations.”

                 – Michael Petrillose, Dubai College of Tourism