Dubai wins 232 bids for business events in 2022, double the 2021 number

Dubai is reporting a exceptional year of successful bids for international conferences, congresses, meetings and incentive travel programmes. Dubai Business Events (DBE), the city’s official convention bureau, part of the Department of Economy and Tourism, said it won 232 bids for business events in 2022, almost twice as many as the previous year. These future events will bring in an additional 135,000 visitors including scientists, thought-leaders and business executives to Dubai. DBE collaborated with a range of stakeholders for the successful 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. Dubai won bids for a record 57 association conferences in 2022, the highest achieved by DBE. The strong performance in 2022 represented a 95% growth in the number of successful bids from 2021 and a 92% increase in the number of delegates added to the pipeline – all further accelerating the momentum of Dubai’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.” Al Khaja said Dubai’s success in capturing business events in 2022, especially international association conferences, would play a vital role in propelling innovation, professional development and knowledge exchange in their respective sectors and industries. “We are grateful to our stakeholders, who have shown a firm commitment to collaborating with us to drive forward Dubai’s business events sector and ensure the city it remains an unrivalled host city. Combined with Dubai’s own homegrown trade shows and conferences, as well as other meetings being brought to the city, the business events sector continues to form an important pillar of Dubai’s destination offering and tourism growth,” 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 Meanwhile, 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. In addition to 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. Overall, this resulted in Dubai’s business events proposition becoming more familiar to meeting planners in 33 markets. Steen Jakobsen, associate vice-president, Dubai Business Events said: “Engaging with meeting planners globally throughout 2022, we consistently heard that they were impressed with the way in which Dubai’s business events sector rapidly rebounded in the wake of the pandemic and appreciative of the platform the city provided them to safely resume their events. This has built on many years of efforts to consistently develop Dubai’s offerings, across not only the business events sector but also the knowledge economy – and drive awareness of it among meeting planners and association executives. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with our stakeholders in 2023 and leveraging our international partnerships to further elevate Dubai as a destination of choice.” Visit www.dubaibusinessevents.com for more information.