Dubai Aims To Become The Most Successful Events City In The World
A week after the UAE’s winning bid to host Expo 2020 in Dubai, and just days after the World Travel Awards 2013 named Dubai the World’s Leading Destination, His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM),spoke about Dubai’s status as an events destination at the HostCities Conference (Park Hyatt, Dubai, 4 – 5 December).Having already established itself as the events hub of the MENASA supra-region, Dubai is increasingly being recognised as one of the world’s top events destinations.
HE Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of DTCM, commented: “We want to move from being the regional events hub to a world leading events and entertainment destination and central to this is facilitating improvements in event organisation. We have high targets and big ambitions but we are confident they are achievable. Following the celebrations for the UAE’s 42nd National Day this week, we must now continue to work towards Expo 2020 in the same spirit in which we entered our bid.
“Winning the Expo 2020 bid showed us that when the public and private sector work together, and with the support of the UAE population, we can achieve anything.Dubai is aiming to be the most successful events city in the world.”
Delivering the opening speech at the conference, Dr Ahmad Belhoul, DTCM’s CEO of Strategy and Tourism Sector Development, stated: “Events entertain, inspire and stimulate ideas and creativity, enriching the lives of the local population and acting as a catalyst for the growth of tourism. Expo 2020 provides a clear focus but our overarching strategy includes the continual development of our annual calendar across both business and leisure events, and the development of more city-wide festivals, following the model of the Dubai Shopping Festival which has been such a success in elevating our events, retail and hospitality sectors in the past two decades.”
During the speech, Dr Ahmad Belhoul highlighted ways in which the government and private sector work together to make it easier to stage and promote events in the Emirate,highlighting the decree issued in September 2013 by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, that names DTCM as the authority for managing the application and licensing process for event permits in Dubai and tasks the body with creating a fully-integrated eLicensing and ticketing system for all events in Dubai.
Dr Ahmad Belhoul stated: “We have commenced work on a fully integrated events licensing and ticketing system which will make it even easier to stage, promote and sell an event in Dubai. The system will facilitate greater efficiency for event organisers and for the government entities responsible for granting permits, in addition to enabling the creation of a comprehensive database of all events taking place in Dubai, resulting in greater efficiencies in resource planning across government entities. Similarly, the centralised ticketing platform will encapsulate all procedures related to event ticketing, including the collection of ticketing fees and the distribution of tickets.”
The platform will be provided to all event organisers, venues and existing ticketing outlets, either as a consumer-facing ticketing solution or as a back-end interface with their existing e-ticketing system. Hotels, airlines, tour operators, travel agents and other ticket aggregators will be able to subscribe to the system, increasing the amount of marketing and distribution channels available to event organisers. The platform is currently under development.
Dr Ahmad Belhoul added: “Everything in our strategy is geared towards maximising our strategic geographic location and furthering our position as a meeting place for the world.”
Emirate: Dubai
Date: Dec 5, 2013
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