Dubai World Trade Centre attracted 2.74 million visitors in 2015

Over the past year, the newly established DWTC Authority has served as a strong regulatory complement to the DWTC business networking proposition, with a focus on broader ecosystem enablement, developing unique commercial real estate value and creating a holistic destination value proposition.

Thanks to the impeccable reputation built over the years as a world-leader in the global exhibitions industry, DWTC is widely recognised as the most conducive international platform for businesses from the East and West to access and service emerging markets in Africa and the wider region.

DWTC’s 2015 results are a continuum in the trajectory of double-digit year on year growth supported by an extensive and varied events calendar across strategic industry sectors that are well aligned with Dubai’s wider priorities for economic diversification.

Last year saw 396 trade events being hosted at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) venue including 104 mega-events, delivering a total of 2.74 million MICE delegates and attendees with 53,547 exhibitors from 185 countries to Dubai. With nearly 41per cent international participation across its portfolio of events, DWTC contributed an incremental 1,066,865 global visitors to Dubai’s business tourism figures.

The primary international source markets for visitors included: Saudi Arabia, India, United Kingdom, Pakistan, China, Qatar, Oman, Iran, Jordan and Egypt. These accelerating numbers are a further testament of its key positioning, both on a global scale and within a diversified and sustainable local economy that supports future growth, employment and prosperity.

“Building on our core strategic fundamentals of delivering an enabling commerce platform for the world to do business with the wider region, we have focused our efforts on setting in motion the next phase of DWTC ‘s evolution. During 2015 we launched several medium-long term initiatives centered on customer experience enhancement, with technology and innovation at the heart of powering future growth opportunities for our business. The performance results clearly reflect the resilience of our diversified venue calendar catering for various event types across a broad set of industry sectors that has allowed DWTC to deliver strong international traffic growth from key source markets. Over the next 3 years, our priorities are aligned to the economic diversification focus of the UAE and Dubai, so that DWTC sustainably drives long-term returns for the MICE industry and consequently builds its contribution to our GDP,” said Helal Saeed Almarri.