Emirates offers a first class World Cup experience

March 12 marked another date for the history books with Emirates being announced as FIFA’s Global Tour Operator for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Emirates will be offering fans from around the globe the chance to purchase world class, seamless travel packages that will include flights, accommodation, ground transportation and match tickets to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Football fans will also have the opportunity to purchase, for the first time, unique 'follow your team' travel packages that will ensure they don’t miss a moment of their team’s action over in South Africa and safeguard them should their team be unfortunate enough not to qualify.

Emirates’ partnership with FIFA began at the 2006 FIFA World Cup when it became the first airline to be a sponsor of this prestigious global sporting event. Following on from the success of 2006, Emirates then cemented its status as an Official FIFA Partner up to and including the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline & Group said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for Emirates and we are pleased to be able to develop our partnership with FIFA by offering our world class travel services to football fans globally. This newest development of our FIFA activation demonstrates how, as a FIFA Partner, we are bringing the spirit of the event to our existing and potential customers worldwide and offering a comprehensive FIFA World Cup experience.”

“Emirates is a valued partner of FIFA and we are delighted to have them on board as our global Tour Operator,” commented Jérôme Valcke , FIFA General Secretary.

“The goal of our Tour Operator program for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is to facilitate safe and effective travel to the matches for the largest possible number of fans from countries around the world, and we know that partnering with Emirates will help us achieve this. As a partner of ours until 2014 we are looking forward to working closely with Emirates and developing further initiatives for fans across the globe over the coming years.”

The Emirates FIFA World Cup Tour Packages will go on sale shortly and a further announcement will be made detailing the tour packages.