Set to be held over the coming years, the events will bring in an additional 135,000 visitors including scientists, thought-leaders and business executives to Dubai
Business events are poised to make a vital contribution to Dubai’s economic development and tourism growth, with another exceptional year of successful bids for international conferences, congresses, meetings and incentive travel programmes.
Dubai Business Events (DBE), the city’s official convention bureau, said it won 232 bids for business events in 2022, almost twice as many as the previous year.
Set to be held over the coming years, the events will bring in an additional 135,000 visitors including scientists, thought-leaders and business executives to Dubai, enhancing the value generated by the business events and tourism ecosystem.
Dubai’s business events and tourism
DBE collaborated with a range of stakeholders for the successful event bids, including Al Safeer Congress ambassadors and the public and private sector entities they represent, industry partners including Dubai World Trade Centre and Emirates, and hotels and professional congress organisers (PCOs) across the city.
Beyond their direct impact, the events, which include flagship conferences and congresses organised by international associations, as well as prestigious corporate meetings held by multinationals, will contribute to the emirate’s growth as a knowledge economy hub.
Dubai won bids for a record 57 association conferences in 2022, the highest achieved by DBE.
The strong performance in 2022 represented a 95 percent growth in the number of successful bids from 2021 and a 92 percent increase in the number of delegates added to the pipeline – all further accelerating the momentum of the emirate’s growth.
Ahmed Al Khaja, CEO of Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment, said: “The remarkable growth in successful event bids contributes to the goal of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to make the city one of the top three global destinations for tourism and business.”
“Our goal has not only been to grow the business events sector and drive further visitation to the city, but also to ensure it can feed into the development of key sectors and professions,” Al Khaja said.
The major association events captured in 2022 included the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine WorldLab Congress 2024, International Congress of Endocrinology 2024, World Sports Medicine Congress 2024, World Congress of the International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologies 2026, and International Symposium on Dental Hygiene 2028.
The corporate meetings and incentive travel programmes that Dubai won bids for include IBM India and Europe Incentives 2023, Terpel Convention 2023, Envista EMEA Summit 2023 and Mary Kay Mexico Incentive 2024.
Aside from the bidding activity, DBE kept Dubai top of mind among meeting planners and association executives through an intense, year-round calendar of almost 200 global sales activities, including study missions, roadshows and participation in major trade shows.
To build on its 2022 successes, DBE is once again embarking on year-round activities in Dubai to further raise the profile of the city’s strengths and capabilities as a business events destination.
These include sales missions to key target markets and participation in major trade shows including IBTM World and IMEX.
DBE will also join forces with industry stakeholders to host meeting planners in Dubai for a series of study missions that will allow them to see first-hand the emirate’s business events and tourism infrastructure and its rapidly-growing knowledge economy.
Source: Arabian Business
