Dubai: The Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), an exhibitions and events venue, attracted 2.74 million delegates and attendees last year, it said in a statement on Monday.
The centre saw a 12 per cent year-on-year increase in traffic in 2015, while the number of exhibiting countries rose 17 per cent.
“Backed by a prudent long term expansion strategy with strategic diversification of the event calendar, the DWTC business has steadily grown in number of events, venue occupancy rates, visitation quality and volumes, and in building Dubai’s international attractiveness for exhibiting corporates and trade delegates,” stated Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Board of Dubai World Trade Centre Authority.
There were 396 trade events last year hosted at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) venue, including 104 mega-events, with 53,547 exhibitors from 185 countries.
With nearly 41 per 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.
“The stability and tenacity of Dubai’s economic growth, is largely due to the forward looking trade-enabling policies, and the ecosystem that has been put in place to sustainably fuel economic diversification as core to the UAE’s growth agenda. Establishment of specialised sector clusters and free trade zones, with strong legislations has been one of the cornerstones of this approach, and the DWTC Authority is the newest addition with a very distinctive proposition beyond delivering a state-of-the-art business ecosystem,” stated Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General of Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA) and Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM).
“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,” he added.
DWTC’s varied events calendar across strategic industry sectors are well aligned with Dubai’s wider priorities for economic diversification, according to the statement.
DWTC saw high occupancy levels last year as it expanded even further to incorporate new exhibitions, international conferences, consumer and live events. There were 27 new shows including 8 exhibitions and 19 associations and conferences last year.