Dubai: Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) events in 2015 contributed Dh12 billion in retained value towards Dubai’s economy.
The contribution was equivalent to 3.1 per cent of the emirate’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the latest Economic Impact Assessment report released by DWTC on Monday. Total economic output was over Dh20.9 billion last year.
The DWTC report based its findings on an economic impact analysis using an econometric model that measures the direct, indirect and induced effects generated by the incremental spending of participants in DWTC’s events within Dubai and the resulting production-driven effects to cater for higher demand in the local economy.
The model was developed on a data set covering statistics for 104 large scale events hosted at DWTC during 2015 and face-to-face field surveys of nearly 18,000 participants.
Leading the region’s meetings incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) activity, the DWTC attracted 2.6 million attendees last year at its 104 large-scale events, of which 1.19 million were from overseas, which resulted in nearly 46 per cent of international participation at these events.
Last year, international visitors to business events at the DWTC stayed on average six days and spent nearly Dh8,268 during their visit, which is nine times the average spending of UAE-based attendees.
“[The] DWTC is committed to Dubai’s economic diversification strategy firmly aligned to the Dubai Plan 2021, and is working towards contributing business visitors to the tourism target of 20 million visitors by 2020,” stated Helal Saeed Al Merri, director-general at the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority and Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
“With our ongoing capacity investments, we expect to continue to keep the momentum going on driving both, optimal scale and quality of content across our show calendar to ultimately allow business tourism to become an even greater economic engine for Dubai,” he added.
According to the study, DWTC events generated Dh20.9 billion in total sales from event participation related spends, not including any commercial deals closed at, or resulting from the events, or the value of business partnerships established during the events. It added that Dh14.9 billion of this value was directly driven by event participants with the MICE sector and sectors relating to travel, tourism, hospitality and entertainment.
Every Dh1 spent at a DWTC event created Dh5 in value for the wider Dubai economy in 2015.
“Every overseas participant at our venue is ultimately a visitor to Dubai and will benefit the wider tourism ecosystem from airlines and hotels, to retail and attractions across the city. Naturally, the massive multiplier effect of having international traffic drives much greater value to our GDP. Hence one of the priorities for DWTC is to ensure that our portfolio of events has the right content and quality across the sectors that are most appealing to source markets for visitors from the region as well as to attract the thought-leading exhibitors from around the globe,” Al Merri said.
The key factors to enhance MICE sector contribution include international attendance and scale.
According to the study, mega-events are reported to create four times more impact compared to smaller scale events. Event scale is based on a threshold number of attendees, with over 30,000 falling under the ‘mega’ category.
The DWTC hosted 23 mega-events — 22 per cent of the total events — that delivered nearly 54 per cent international attendance, compared to the 31 smaller events that had around 43 per cent foreign traffic.
The DWTC said it will continue to invest in facilities and services to secure events that are relevant in the global context and sustain the value it generates for Dubai, the UAE and the region.
