Dubai team woos meetings and incentives market

The Emirates team flew to Germany to showcase its MICE products and services at IMEX, the Worldwide Exhibition for Incentive Travel & Meetings & Events. Germany is the world's third largest MICE market, and IMEX is the only meetings and incentive travel exhibition attended by both outbound delegates and hosted international buyers.

IMEX Frankfurt attracts planners and suppliers from all parts of the MICE market. Volker Greiner, Emirates' Sales Manager Germany, said: "It's the one event under one roof where you can mine one year's worth of business opportunities and updates."

Dubai, venue for last September's World Bank/International Monetary Fund conference, is fast emerging as one of the world's most important MICE destinations. Already boasting top-class facilities, it now has a new 4,500 square feet International Convention Centre too.

This year IMEX attracted 6,000 international visitors including 2,800 hosted buyers and 2,800 exhibitors from 130 countries.

Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa, the Emirates Group resort near Dubai, was kept busy promoting its new conference facilities, while sister company Arabian Adventures unveiled its new range of tours and safaris for companies seeking unusual incentives for their salespeople and dealers.

Mr Greiner said: "We offer 1,000 seats a day on our five flights from Germany to Dubai, which connect with many other top incentive destinations, so we're ideal for this fast-growing market.

"Our special incentive and group facilities include easy check-in, company branding on board our flights, for example on headrest covers, and a wide range of destination management services in Dubai, which is easy to reach from Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and soon the US.

He added: "This makes Dubai the ideal venue for worldwide conventions, and many other categories of visitor enjoy its excellent convention and hotel facilities too."

Emirates now serves 76 cities worldwide, and will launch daily non-stop services between New York and Dubai from 1st June.