Luring Chinese visitors to the capital will help promote Abu Dhabi as a leading conference destination, according to the director of business events on Yas Island.
The Middle East’s business conferences and events industry is now the world’s fastest growing, and the UAE is strengthening its reputation as a commercial hub, driven by Dubai’s Expo 2020 win.
“It’s growing exponentially,” said Clive Dwyer, the director of Yas Island Destination Management. “Many people don’t realise just how popular Abu Dhabi is going to be.”
Yesterday, the Gulf International Business Travel and Meetings (GIBTM) event opened at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, where it will run until tomorrow. The event features 300 exhibitors from the conference industry, and its organisers expect it to attract 2,000 visitors.
It allows significant international buyers to see the region “up close and in person”, Mr Dwyer said. In 2012, Abu Dhabi entered the International Congress and Conference Association’s top 100 conference destinations, which will have a big impact on the city’s attractiveness to foreign planners, he said.
A series of reciprocal visa relaxations in Europe and the UAE over the past few months should make it easier for conference planners to hold events in the country, as barriers for European visitors entering the country have been lowered.
“The visa process gets to the lifeblood of the corporate travel industry. Sophisticated airports plus sophisticated visa programmes means it is more likely visitors will come through,” said Mr Dwyer.
Abu Dhabi is also reaching out to China for business travellers, as economic growth builds an internationally mobile middle class in the country.
“We’re going to Shanghai to talk to industry leaders. There’s a natural curiosity about the UAE in the China market, because the UAE is emerging as a place to hold conferences,” said Mr Dwyer.
The Expo 2020 win is also likely to be a boon to the country’s conference industry.
“[It] has business and community leaders around the world looking at the UAE,” said Mr Dwyer. “For the 20 years afterwards, it’ll be a massive spike for awareness and intent to hold meetings in the UAE. People will intend to travel specifically to the UAE for conferences.”
But smaller can be better when it comes to building sustainable and attractive conference venues and Mr Dwyer cautioned planners to learn from the experiences of the Olympic hosts Dehli, Athens, and Beijing.
“Some cities have fallen into the trap of building monster venues which lay empty. Smaller conference groups don’t want to book them – they say they’re cavernous. You can fall for the trap of building too big,” he said. “But I don’t see that being the case in the UAE.”
Mr Dwyer also said that the Expo would push up prices for conference bookers during the event. But he said this was likely to be temporary, because the relevant infrastructure would be built to be multipurpose, and so would remain cost-effective.
“I would caution strategic planners to think about the 52 weeks of the year, when 600 to 1,500 person conferences [are most frequent], as opposed to the one-off 20,000 person conferences,” he said.
Cooperation between Dubai and Abu Dhabi has prevented the cities from cannibalising each others’ conference industries.
“Both cities have very responsive convention bureaux” which collaborate, he said.
But Abu Dhabi retains a price advantage, because Dubai’s hotel stock is more mature and has higher occupancy rates, which pushes up prices in its hotels.
And this is good news for the capital, which is likely to benefit from buoyant international demand.
“It is not surprising to see some of the world’s fastest growth rates [in the Middle East],” said Martin Sirk, the International Congress and Convention Association’s chief executive. “Excellent meetings infrastructure has been developed [in the region, and] governments have created knowledge strategies to underpin their economic development agendas.”
“The growth potential for the region’s [meetings, conferences and exhibitions] sector is exceptional,” said Lois Hall, GIBTM’s exhibition manager.
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
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