The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Sunaina Rana/ Emirates Business
Messe Frankfurt has established a prominent name in the region for organising trade fairs. The company deems organising fair their passion. Like hardly any other company, Messe Frankfurt is a byword for internationally successful trade fair concepts. With its brands, the Group is as much at home in key international hubs as at its own Frankfurt base. Other than Dubai, the company also has its offices in Hong Kong, Moscow and Chicago. The company believes ‘organise events where people come together — worldwide’.
With organising 132 trade fairs at over 40 locations in five continents, Messe Frankfurt is expanding its core areas of expertise steadily, thereby adding to its worldwide service portfolio and expertise. With a powerful global sales network, 29 subsidiaries and 2,297 employees, the international events company offres a platform to its customers to work side by side with them.
Emirates Business talks to Ahmed Pauwels, CEO of Messe Frankfurt Middle East, regarding influence of trade fair on the economy of the country.
What is the estimated growth rate of the exhibition and conference sector in Dubai last year?
In 2015, Messe Frankfurt Middle East posted the fifth successive year of double-digit growth, with sales revenue growing by 20 percent year-on-year. This increase is largely due to the strong demand across the region for the group’s portfolio of events in the exhibition and conference sector.
How do you assess the performance of the sector during the first quarter of this year?
The overall response to our exhibitions and conferences this year has been positive and encouraging overall. Numbers and representation at all our events held so far have been increasing and we expect this trend to continue through the year.
How much is the total growth in the exhibitions and conferences organised by the company in Dubai last year in terms of number of visitors, participants and exhibitors?
Exhibitions in Dubai organised by Messe Frankfurt Middle East in 2015 featured a combined 5,653 exhibitors from 60 countries, 13 per cent more than 2014’s total of 5,011. The events, which all took place in Dubai, attracted 109,837 trade visitors from 130 countries, an 11 per cent increase over the 2014 total of 98,385 visitors.
What are the main innovations and the factors that affect the local MICE industry?
There are a lot of new technologies that are available and organisers are scratching their heads about what to use and how to integrate that. Furthermore there are a lot of experiments being made but I would say the bigger picture is still unclear.
In 2013, I wrote a thesis for my MBA degree about the exhibition industry in a digital world, and while it probably raised more questions than it answered, a clear outcome was that we, as exhibition organisers, need to ‘up’ our digital game.
We all assume that the main motivating factor for visitors to attend exhibitions is for the face to face contact with exhibitors, seeing first hand their latest products close up and evaluating their suitability.
This is true, but exhibitors and visitors now demand more efficiency, more targeted marketing and better results from attending an exhibition. We need to embrace digitisation both before and after a show to better match exhibitors with visitors, convincing them that they have to be there.
In 2014 our parent company, Messe Frankfurt, established Dexperty (digital expertise by Messe Frankfurt) — a Digital Business division operating as an independent business field, and afforded the same strategic importance as the Group’s core event business.
Digital products and services brought together under Dexperity include smartphone apps, year-round online exhibitor and product portals, AdWords campaigns, online banner advertising, and much more.
What are the main trends in local exhibition and conference sector? What are your suggestions to meet the growing expectations?
The outlook for the exhibition and convention industry in the region is currently extremely positive. The Middle East is increasingly becoming an extremely attractive business meetings destination, thanks to significant growth in venue infrastructure, better connectivity, highly-effective marketing promotion and the inherent advantages of being within easy reach of a large number of emerging markets. Companies eager to target the emerging economies of South and Central Asia and Africa, are participating in growing numbers in Middle East exhibitions, which attract significant trade visitor numbers from emerging markets.
We do see the increasing demand for turnkey solutions, in particular from new market entrants, and we do provide all-round-services for our exhibitors.
Are there new nationalities that began to prominently emerge on the map of the events in Dubai?
Even as our events continued to be well-patronised by trade buyers and delegates from across the region, we have noticed an increase of interest from Africa, Central Asia and the Levant in addition to strong responses from traditionally well-represented regions such as the GCC, Iran, Pakistan and India.
Do you see the rise in demand of hotels during the major exhibition season?
With the hospitality sector in Dubai evolving incrementally, we have noticed that our trade buyers and exhibitors have a range of accommodations available to them and they have rarely experienced a shortage. While there may be difficulties in getting accommodation closer to the venue during some of our larger exhibitions the general feedback from our partners has been positive.
What is the importance of
exhibition and conference industry for the economy of the local business community?
The exhibition and conference industry has a considerable effect on the Dubai economy as it impacts various sectors directly and indirectly. The hospitality trade is one of the primary beneficiaries. In 2015, for example our events attracted over 100,000 trade buyers and visitors, of these close to half were international. If each visitor (50,000) stays an average of three nights it
results in around 150,000 hotel room nights. Furthermore, international exhibitors stay on average for 5 nights with a team of at least 3. Last year we welcomed over 5,600 exhibitors across our trade fairs so this could be up to an additional 75,000-plus room nights.
All of these visitors also spend additionally on food and beverage, transport, shopping and recreation providing a major economic boost to the hospitality, travel and retail industries as well.
Trade fairs also play a vital role in ensuring bilateral trade between countries and have a significant impact on the imports/exports to and from the country.
In terms of sectorial specialised exhibitions, what are the main sectors that feature the largest number of exhibitions?
The automotive aftermarket, beauty and wellness, the safety, security, and fire protection industries are a few of the main sectors featuring the largest number of exhibitors and visitors in Dubai.
For example, Intersec, Beautyworld Middle East, and Automechanika Dubai are our three flagship shows, and together feature more than 4,500 exhibitors from 60 countries, and attract more than 90,000 visitors from 127 countries.
How digital services evolve to ease queues congestion and reduce waiting time for
visitors during registration?
Pre-registration has proved increasingly popular among trade visitors to our shows in Dubai. The process enables time-pressured trade buyers to bypass entry and access queues and directly access the sectors and products they are interested in.
Our Business Matchmaking facility takes this process even further.
Pre-registered trade visitors are automatically profiled into our Business Matchmaking System, which enables them to pre-research the exhibiting companies and lists in detail what & who they can expect to see at the show.
Our Business Matchmaking Team will then work with the trade visitor to confirm meetings before and during the show, thus maximising the trade visitor experience.
Depending on the size of the exhibition and the years of operation, we hold between 50,000 and 150,000 active data sets per exhibition. The most active “big data†opportunities still arise around the exhibition, when analysing pre-registration behaviour, on-site behaviour and hall access patterns.
