DUBAI — Irhal Halal Travel App was the only MENA startup that was selected for the first global travel startup program launched by Google for Entrepreneurs Exchange in partnership with Astrolabs Dubai.
The intense weeklong program involved 12 leading global travel startups who were introduced to the Innovation teams at Emirates Airline, Jumeirah Group and Dubai Tourism among others.
Ivan Jakovljevic, head of travel, finance & government, MENA at Google and Ali Hashmi, travel industry manager at Google, introduced the startups to the MENA travel eco-system and stressed that MENA travelers are one of the most active mobile users in the world.
Since 41% of travel search and 58% of video travel search in the MENA region is done on mobile phones, travel startups with a mobile-first approach are likely to succeed in the region.
“The Google Travel Startup program was a virtual Bucket List for travel startups. It included meetings with Emirates Airline, Jumeirah, Dubai Tourism, 500 Startups, a visit to the Burj Al Arab helipad and to the 124th floor observation deck at Burj Khalifa,” said Irfan Ahmad, CEO of Irhal.
Irhal is a Dubai-based Halal travel app and website which has over 1.7 million visitors from the Middle East and was the only Arabic language startup that qualified for the program.
The Irhal app has over 90 city guides that include Halal restaurants, mosque locations, prayer timings and Qibla direction along with information on tourist attractions, shopping and hotels.
Louis Lebbos and Muhammed Mekki, the founders of Astrolab, the only Google Tech Hub in the MENA region, coordinated the program. The duo had earlier launched Namshi, the leading fashion ecommerce site in the Middle East.
