Dubai: The Travellers festival 2012 will be held for the first time in Dubai on Wednesday (December 26), and it will bring together travelling enthusiasts from across the world to share their experiences with the public.
The event is said to be the first of its kind in the Arab world and Middle East, and is held under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, and organised by Emirates Travellers.
Emirates Travellers is a group of travellers that travel across the world by car and were established in 1996.
Awad Bin Mijren, head of the Emirates Travellers, said that the festival is a great opportunity for travellers to share their ideas and experiences. The public can learn from the travellers’ experiences and learn about the challenges those people faced.
The festival will be held at the Cultural and Scientific Association in Al Mamzar on Wednesday and Thursday.
The soft opening will be on Wednesday at 2pm and will have all the exhibitors, while on Thursday it will be open from 10am-5pm. In addition to the exhibition, there will be a series of lectures by seasoned travellers and adventurers.
The speakers include the first Emirati to climb Mount Everest, the first woman to climb Mount Everest, a family that holds a Guinness world record for travelling across the world by car over a period of 28 years and a Bosnian man who walked from Bosnia to Makkah, just to name a few.
Andrew Pettengell, an Australian traveller who has been travelling by car with his wife Ann for five years, said that the event was a great chance to “raise awareness about travelling as well as inspire people to travel”.
Bin Mijren said that they plan to hold this festival every year.
