Middle East Vending & Kiosks Expo set to bring together top industry majors

The Middle East Vending Expo 2006 and the Middle East Kiosks Expo, to be held at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre on May 20 and 21, 2006, will be a one-stop business-sourcing centre showcasing the most advanced vending and kiosks products and technology. The event, held under the patronage of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI), will be organised by Global Links Exhibition & Conference Organizers LLC - one of the leading arrangers of exhibitions and conferences in the Middle East.

Among the leading industry players who have confirmed their participation at the Expos are Alhamrani Universal Company, Hemisphere West Europe Ltd, Pyramid Technologies Inc, Aptec Distribution, Kiosk Information Systems, Zupera Technology, Al Sayegh Brothers, Validation Technologies, Custom Engineering, Eastern Networks, All Star Vending, Aram & Hagop, Kiosk Technology Systems, GM Vending, Energy International, Phoenix Mecano, GPTDuvade and Walvyn Group.

The International event will feature conferences and seminars addressed by some of the world's leading industry experts. Those confirmed include Peter Snyder, Kiosks Information Systems (KIS), United Kingdom who will give his insights on Rules & Regulations of the Kiosks Industry Özcan Özbilge, Exim A.S., Turkey who will be updating the trade public on Next Generation Self-Service: Trends & Technologies, Catherine Piana Director-General of European Vending Association, Chief Executive Officer of World Vending Association will address the delegates on the Challenges, opportunities and trends in Worldwide Vending. The conferences and seminars are open to the visitors of the expo free of charge.

The Vending Expo will represent a definite opportunity for the vendors to display and educate the trade on the technological updates in self-service equipment and products such as beverage vending, bottled water vending, chocolates vending, shoe-shine vending, first aid vending, gifts vending, pay phones, postage stamp vending, newspaper and magazine vending.

Voicing comments on the active participation from a majority of industry leaders, Catherine Piana Director-General of European Vending Association, Chief Executive Officer of World Vending Association. said: "The participation list reads like a virtual who's who in the business, which is actually a clear indicator of the both the interest of the exhibitors and the potential that the Middle East and particularly Dubai has to offer."

Supporting Catherine's viewpoints, Mr. Ejaz Hashmi, Senior Manager, Marketing & Sales Support at Alhamrani Universal Company, said: "We are expecting that the expo will be a grand success and highly profile delegates will attend. We are happy to be part of this expo in 2006. I hope we will have a good contacts and opportunities which will provide us with a good business leads." Alhamrani Universal, a member of Alhamrani Group of Companies (www.alhamrani.net), has been a supplier of creative strategies and solutions for the financial services and retail sectors for over 25 years across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.

Similarly, Louise Janeway, Sales Director, Hemisphere West Europe Limited, said: "Hemisphere West Europe Ltd (HWE) is delighted to be exhibiting at the Middle East Vending and Kiosk Expo for the first time. As global suppliers of currency handling equipment, we are pleased to be involved in this important and dynamic market. We aim to offer our knowledge and experience of note readers, coin acceptors, hoppers, printers and interface boards to the market and look forward to meeting new friends and associates." Based in the UK and the US, Hemisphere West Europe specializes in currency handling validation products for applications ranging from Internet Kiosks, Amusements, Vending, Payment /Ticketing ND Gaming/Lottery.

Pyramid Technologies Inc., a US manufacturer of bill acceptors (bank note validators), is also being represented at the Expo. Commenting on its participation, Jim Zayak, Sales-Emerging Markets, Pyramid Inc., said: "We look forward to exhibiting at the Middle East Vending Expo in Dubai. Through the intelligent designs of David Mays, our founder, and his engineering staff of over 30 years experience, Pyramid's design team has come up with a reliable, customer friendly product that will provide year after year of trouble-free operation." The company manufactures the Apex and Trilogy currency acceptors servicing industries for vending, amusement, kiosks, gaming, changers and car wash equipment.

Speaking about the role of the vending machines and kiosks, Mr. Girish Dabrai, Global Links Managing Director, said: "The expo, to be held for the first time in the region, is expected to provide an impetus to the Vending and Kiosks industries and has the support of all the leading companies in the sector. The extensive use of self service technologies accord both businesses and consumers inherent benefits like decreased customer wait-time, higher efficiency and increased revenues. The success of any business model is becoming increasingly dependent on such critical indicators."

He added: "The Middle East Kiosks Expo 2006, to be held alongside the Vending Expo, will showcase comprehensible solutions, techno-savvy advances and the latest procurement solutions that include hardware, software and other network applications required to upgrade machines and make them user-friendly and fully automated."

The exhibition and conference is supported by the Worldwide Vending Association, European Vending Association (EVA) and National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA).