The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi Drives Data-Driven Digital Transformation With Informatica

• Digital-First, Cloud-Native, API-Powered Enterprise Data Management Key to Innovation

Informatica, the enterprise cloud data management leader, announced that the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has selected Informatica to help modernize its cloud strategy in order to stay resilient and remain relevant during the global pandemic. By deploying an integrated Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services platform, DCT Abu Dhabi has become a trusted data provider to both government and private organizations to ultimately help increase visits to the UAE capital post-pandemic.

Abu Dhabi – which saw a record number of international visitors in 2019 – has a mission to make the city a “must-see, must-visit” leisure and business destination for both international as well as domestic guests. DCT Abu Dhabi contributes to the nation’s economic diversification, working closely with stakeholders and partners to market Abu Dhabi both locally and internationally. The entity also helps preserve Abu Dhabi’s cultural heritage, and also informs tourist attractions and hotels about ways they can enhance guest experiences, cultivate references, and attract more visitors.

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“As we aim to increase footfall and international traffic to Abu Dhabi and maximize the economic impact of our efforts, we strive to be data-driven,” said Aysha Saleh Al Ghaithi, Data Engineering Section Manager at DCT Abu Dhabi. “DCT Abu Dhabi is committed to using innovative and world-leading solutions to overcome challenges. Our collaboration with Informatica gave us the tools to tackle our shortfalls in providing fresh insights to our internal and external stakeholders and our issues in getting tourism data from source to dashboard in a timely and efficient manner. Our successful collaboration has provided significantly better performance reporting, giving us a platform for better decision-making to understand the impact of tourism and culture on Abu Dhabi’s economy.”

To introduce automation into its data ecosystem, DCT Abu Dhabi deployed an integrated Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services platform including Cloud Data and Application Integration, Data Quality, B2B Data Exchange, and API Management. In just four months, it built 90 complex ETL jobs spanning 17 source systems, implemented over 100 data quality rules enforced before the data is deposited into a Microsoft SQL Server-based data warehouse, started to use Informatica Cloud B2B Gateway to capture data coming in from hotels, cultural sites, and other tourism partners in emails and files and leveraged Cloud Data and Application Integration to consume data from Wi-Fi hotspots and industry aggregators. Instead of reporting tourism data monthly, it’s been able to switch to daily reporting for important KPIs – such as occupancy rate, room revenue, etc. for performance of the hotel industry. DCT Abu Dhabi employees are also saving significant time that they previously spent manually collecting and integrating data.

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As it continues the journey, DCT Abu Dhabi plans to move its data warehouse to Microsoft Azure for greater agility. It will leverage the prebuilt connectivity from Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services to help accelerate modernization to Azure. Informatica and Microsoft Azure Partnership provides synergy and integration between the two platforms. Informatica is an industry leader in data management and was a natural choice to go with the best of breed technology to meet DCT Abu Dhabi’s unique challenges. DCT Abu Dhabi was recently recognized by Gartner, Inc. as a finalist in the 2020 Gartner Government Eye on Innovation Award for its work in improving data quality and delivering new data insights for the culture and tourism sectors.

“The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development now estimates that international tourism will fall by around 80% in 2020,”¹ said Emilio Valdes, vice president for EMEA and LATAM, Informatica. “By helping DCT Abu Dhabi become a data hub for all entities that have a stake in promoting its tourism, we are helping them to put measures in place today that will shape their future in a post-pandemic economy.”

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