Sports travel agency transforms experiences for fans in the region

Dubai: When the Dubai World Cup takes place on April 6 at Meydan Racecourse, a fair few of the attendees will have Allan Holt to thank for their experience.

The 58-year-old Englishman has spent the past 34 years in the travel industry, and the past two decades connecting sports fans with events in the UAE and around the globe through his travel agency, recently rebranded as ES Sport. With offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, his business has taken major strides in the sports tourism industry in recent times.

Recently, ES Sport expanded its executive team, which includes group managing director Holt and group financial director Paul McSorley, by welcoming new chairman Sheikh Mohamed bin Saif Al-Nahyan to lead the agency in a new strategic direction, leveraging his Emirati perspective and a deeper understanding of the Abu Dhabi market.

Holt has come a long way since he cut his teeth in the travel industry in his native UK before moving to the UAE, where he initially set up a travel agency that would eventually become Expat Sport, focused on sports tourism.

“When I moved to the region 18 years ago, I continued that business, which is travel and tourism,” Holt told Arab News. “But we always had a strong focus on sport because I’m passionate about it.”

As the digital age transformed the travel industry, Holt realized the need for differentiation in a market increasingly dominated by online bookings.

“We were looking for something unique that could add value,” he said. “So when I moved to the UAE, I continued the business here. I saw an opportunity because the service levels at that point weren’t at the standard of what our business provided in the UK.”

This gap in service quality motivated him to create a travel agency