It is no secret that Dubai is the fastest growing and most successcapacity throughout the year, and leisure visitors heading to Dubai often have to compete with corporates for rooms in city hotels and beach resoful meetings industry destination in the Middle East.
The Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) runs at full rts alike.
We as an organisation don’t really have to focus on exhibitions in the short term because the market is already there and the DICEC is packed
But like the leisure side of the tourism market, the Meetings Industry is not going to rest on its laurels and enjoy its success.
Dubai has achieved all of this in spite of the fact that there is no visible and independent convention bureau that offers financial support and incentives programmes for regular bookers, although this is something that is set to change in the near future.
The Dubai Convention Bureau (DCB) does in fact act as an independent body from the Dubai Department of Trade and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), but poor PR and lack of visibility means that many corporates are unaware of its activity, concedes Natasha Tomé-Zwarts, head of marketing and communications, DCB.
“The problem is that a lot of the suppliers don’t understand the role of the DCB yet – they see us as an arm of the DTCM,” she told MIME.
“For independent conferences, we can help out with marketing support or provide them with a welcome reception – it all depends on what the client needs, but we don’t have an established incentives programme yet.”
But following a deal signed at EIBTM with IT solutions provider Ungerboeck, the DCB is set to unveil a new automated booking and registration system.
“With the new system, a potential client will be able to log into the system and make their request online,” explained Tomé-Zwarts.
“That proposal will then be forwarded to hotels that have the rooms and facilities that might fit the requirements of that corporate.”
DICEC would also use the system, allowing DCB to log into its own inventory to check availability and pass on leads, she added.
Emirates also signed up to use the new system, which is expected to be up and running by March or April.
“We are looking to get hotels involved too – in a perfect world they would be linked to the system so we can log into heir systems and check their available inventory for the required dates, and make suggestions based on that,” Tomé-Zwarts added.
Despite Dubai’s accomplishment, and the extensive overall tourism statistics collated by the DTCM, few statistics are available to measure the size or success of the Meetings Industry in Dubai.
“There isn’t really that much in the way of business tourism statistics available at the moment, we don’t have enough staff to measure it yet,” said Tomé-Zwarts.
“We would like eventually to have a system to record [the number of Meetings Industry] visitors, such as a landing card for passengers arriving in Dubai by air, or regular reports from the hotels.
But statistics or no statistics, the size and scale of the Meetings Industry in Dubai is plain for all to see.
New projects across the emirate are set to drive the industry to the next level: now that the art of exhibitions and trade shows has been mastered, the emirate will set its sights on the lucrative associations business, according to Tomé-Zwarts.
“We as an organisation don’t really have to focus on exhibitions in the short term because the market is already there and the DICEC is packed,” said Tomé-Zwarts.
“Incentives are very big here especially the high level corporate incentive for companies like IBM, which have big CEO level incentives. But in the long-term we are targeting the associations market.
Projects like Dubai Trade Centre District, Dubai Exhibitions World, the Bawadi Project, with its own standalone conference centre and Atlantis The Palm, with extensive conference facilities will provide the venues and accommodation for major associations conventions, while Dubai World Central and the new metro system will further improve access for visitors.
“Associations business is international but it is coming strong from Europe especially at the moment. Now we want to get into the US and China,” said Tomé-Zwarts.
“There are so many staff working in the companies in China that the potential to capture MICE business from them is huge, and now that we are on their approved destination list, we can start to develop that market.
There had also been some recent interest from Brazil, following the launch of Emirates’ direct flight to Sao Paulo; the exhibitions capital of South America.
Bawadi:is pitching itself as the leading convention destination in Dubai. The project will include a stand-alone convention centre, exhibition halls, hotel-based convention facilities, meetings rooms, banquet halls and outdoor facilities.
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