DUBAI: Celebrating improvements to its popular Business Rewards programme, Emirates has teamed up with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry to offer exclusive rewards for the leading business organisations small and medium enterprise (SME) members.

Under the partnership, Emirates Business Rewards will award one Dubai Chamber company, which is registered with the Business Rewards scheme, 500,000 air miles every two weeks. The joint promotion will run until 22nd July 2012.

"Dubai Chamber has over 130,000 members and we see this partnership as being a very important tool in helping SMEs in the UAE to maximise their corporate travel benefits," said Khalid Bel Jaflah, Emirates Vice President Commercial Sales UAE. "International company travel is an essential part of most SME businesses, whether its for sourcing new products or networking with clients. Our already successful Business Rewards programme provides this fast growing segment with a way to benefit from essential employee travel utilising Emirates vast worldwide network and gaining points towards their next corporate travel trip in the process." Emirates Business Rewards programme has garnered a substantial number of SME members in the UAE since its launch in 2008. The programme offers SMEs, defined as an organisation with less than 80 staff, a unique way to interact with and be recognised by Emirates for their loyalty.

"SMEs make up 90 percent of all companies in the UAE and are the vast majority of our members. We are always looking for new ways to serve them better and this partnership with Emirates Business Rewards is an excellent example of increasing our member benefits," said H.E. Hamad Buamim, Director General, Dubai Chamber. "We are confident that this tie-up with Emirates will further assist our members in reaching out to high growth emerging markets, a key goal for Dubai Chamber this year." As part of its re-launch, the Business Rewards programme now has a new, streamlined look-and-feel to the website enabling easy booking and account management and the introduction of Business Rewards sites in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese which make the programme accessible to our global SME clients.

The reward mechanism for Business Rewards is simple: for every one $1(USD) spent on travel with Emirates via Business Rewards, booked online or via a preferred travel agent, the organisation is awarded one Business Rewards Mile. Miles earned can be redeemed for flights on Emirates services worldwide rewarding and connecting SMEs as they grow internationally.

Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2012.