Middle East Tourism Marketing Summit structured to meet delegate needs

It was also found that they prefer seminars and workshops delivered by industry specialists and marketing gurus, to add value to the time and money spent in attending conferences and summit events.

According to the survey, almost two thirds of the 1,667 marketing professionals who participated said that despite budget-tightening in response to the current economic downturn, there is still a high level of confidence in the market and companies are still positive about the upcoming year.

Almost 50% of respondents indicated that they had booked up to five events for 2009 already, and almost 14% of those questioned had booked more than 30 events for this year. Most people said they intended to book the same number of events in 2009 as they had in 2008, with 35% of people saying that they intended to book more events - a good indication its business as usual for the market.

Another interesting find, was that they preferred seminars and workshop forums as the drawcards that would see them attend a tourism marketing summit. Networking events and the opportunity to meet with their industry colleagues was also a key ingredient when supporting their requests.

The survey was initiated by Fusion Marketing Management for the 2009 Middle East Tourism Marketing Summit (METMS), to establish the preferences of potential conference and summit delegates and apply this information to the Summit's format, which is to take place in Dubai in December this year. Conducted by ITP Publications, the survey's participants were predominantly from the Middle East hotel industry, travel trade, retail and leisure sectors and the meetings industry.

"We wanted to make sure that the format of the METMS offered delegates what they ultimately wanted. For this reason, we have incorporated the responses from the Destination Marketing Survey into our Summit planning and will be able to offer people not only what they need but also what they want. Industry experts topped the list of the kind of speakers people wanted to see at summits"

Summit organizer, Nicki Page said.

77% of the more than 1,600 survey respondents agreed to this. In hot pursuit were marketing gurus.

Tourism officials and international speakers also faired relatively well on the popularity poll.

"The METMS programme has been created with these statistics in mind," said Nicki. "We will be including top industry professionals and experts in the mix, as well as marketing gurus to explore topical issues including the new rules of marketing and PR and how they can best be used for specific businesses and sectors."

She added that budget constraints - which were also pointed out in the survey as a major challenge - would be highlighted; the Summit's programme aimed to deliver guidance on "doing things differently".