TDIM special seminars to discuss the future of tourism destinations

Seminars conducted alongside TDIM will feature Jean Claude Baumgarten - President, World Travel & Tourism Council, Saleh Al Geziri, Director of Overseas Promotion at the Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing, Government of Dubai, Al Gossling - CEO Extreme Group, Charlie Bray - CEO, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), Darrell Metzger - CEO Ruwaad Destinations and the IAAPA Vice Chairman, Nick Turner, Managing Director - Middle East, Group RCI and Keith James President Jack Rouse & Associates among others.

Leading players in the UAE's, and the region's, tourism project development and investment sector will present a series of 'show-case seminars' to inform and involve global operators and big-ticket investors who are expected to be a significant part of the first-ever show dedicated to the sector's development and investment sectors.

TDIM 08 will take place January 20th to 22nd at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre. The new show focuses on the tourism development projects & investment market and is being organized by Reed Exhibitions Middle East. The trade exhibition will showcase the region's newest and leading projects that will reshape the future of tourism attractions in the Middle East and North Africa. The extensive seminar programme associated with the event will consist of several interactive sessions and panel discusions.

Jean Claude Baumgarten - President, World Travel & Tourism Council, will be the keynote speaker at a seminar titled 'Projections for Travel & Tourism: the Emirates case'. He described TDIM as an event 'which truly marks the economic potential of the Middle East' in terms of investments in tourism. Quoting WTTC research, he said Travel & Tourism in 2007 alone created 231 million jobs worldwide and contributed 10 percent to global GDP, and the industry is set to grow at an annual rate of 4.3% over the next 10 years.

Charlie Bray - CEO, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), will speak at the seminar about the 'State of the Industry'. 'All eyes in our industry are focused on the Middle East. There is so much development happening in terms of projects currently underway and that are planned to boost tourism,' Bray said.

At TDIM 08, Darrell Metzger, CEO, Ruwaad Destinations and the IAAPA Vice Chairman, will present a case study on the Sentosa Destination of Singapore. He believes that the Middle East will need to deliver a true destination experience for the tourism market here to compete with other global destination master planned communities such as Disneyland Resort, Tokyo and Sentosa.

Nick Turner, Regional Managing Director, Group RCI, which specializes in 'non-hotel leisure accommodations', said: 'We have conducted an extensive consumer research in the Middle East region in order to ascertain the potential value of new leisure real estate and hospitality segments. We will share these findings during the TDIM 08 Leisure Real Estate Session.'

'The Middle East tourism and hospitality sector will enjoy increased growth rates through the development of higher yielding tourism related real estate asset classes such as Fractional Ownership Condos, Vacation Ownership Clubs and Buy to Use and Let Holiday Homes. Such new leisure asset classes will enable developers to return higher sales premiums over traditional real estate and higher hotel occupancies in mixed use resorts,' he added.

Keith James, President and Partner, Jack Rouse Associates, will be another speaker representing the industry. 'The projects that are currently in development are some of the more innovative attractions in the world today and a creating quite a buzz within our industry,' he said.

Other leading speakers at TDIM 08 will include Saleh Al Geziri, Director of Overseas promotion at Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing; Government of Dubai, and Alistair Gosling, CEO of Extreme Group, UK, who will tackle the future of Middle East's tourism sector and the role his group expects to play in the region's tourism development in the future. 'With so much vision and so many awe inspiring projects emerging out of the area, the region is for sure set to become the global front runner on the world scene for the fantastic and magnificent,' Gosling said.

Ara Fernezian, Show Manager at Reed Exhibitions Middle East for TDIM 08, is pleased with the response TDIM has evoked from the industry. 'The participation of leading industry spokespersons at the TDIM seminar sessions means an outstanding opportunity for attendees to learn from and network with people who are driving the future direction of the tourism in this region as well as globally', he notes.

TDIM is being organized with the support of DTCM (Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing - Government of Dubai) and WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council). TDIM sponsors include Nakheel, Dubai World Central (DWC), Emirates Airlines, Falcon City of Wonders and Dubailand.

A recent market survey conducted by Reed Exhibitions in preparation for TDIM shows that Dhs1 trillion has been committed to tourism-related projects in the GCC, expected to be completed by 2018. Of this, the UAE accounts for Dhs858bn or 85% of the total tourism project investments in the GCC.

Oman, with Dhs61bn in tourism project investments, and Qatar, with Dhs31.1bn, occupy the second and third slots among GCC countries. Bahrain (Dhs20.77bn), Saudi Arabia (16.44bn) and Kuwait (12.67bn) have also managed to attract significant investments into tourism project development. The figures exclude infrastructure costs such as power plants and transport networks.

Reed's survey has also shown that the UAE tops the GCC in terms of land area occupied by tourism projects. It has an area of 558m square meters under development for tourism projects accounting for more than 75% of the combined land area under development for tourism in the GCC.