Dubai expects returns of over Dhs 100m during upcoming Chinese event

Dubai is hoping to generate strong revenues during an upcoming corporate event being hosted for Chinese insurance and financial industry experts in the emirate.

Over 6,000 delegates are expected to attend the 16th edition of the International Dragon Awards, to be held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from August 22 to 25.

Dubai is the first city outside the Asia Pacific to host the event, which will see delegates from 17 countries gather for meetings, networking events, award ceremonies and sightseeing tours.

“It’s difficult to get a precise figure on the economic impact it will bring but I can best guess it would be around Dhs 100m that this meeting will generate,” director of Dubai Business Events Steen Jakobsen revealed exclusively to Gulf Business on the sidelines of a press event.

“And there is also a mid to long-term effect which we will see when these visitors become ambassadors of Dubai and return with friends and families.

“Also, at this event more than 100 chairpersons and CEOs will be attending and we hope that after having a good experience in Dubai, it will encourage them to bring their own incentive groups in the near future,” he added.

Dubai won the bid to host the event in August 2014 after a two-year investigatory process organised by the Worldwide Chinese Life Insurance Congress, the organisers of the event.

IDA 2015 is the largest conference group to visit Dubai so far this year.

Chairman of the IDA Richard Wu said: “We choose Dubai not only because it has a state-of-the-art business and convention centre which is equipped with all the latest facilities, but also because of its accessibility in terms of airlift, its many well-designed hotels and its high quality service standards.”

China became Dubai’s number one trading partner in 2015 with total trade averaging at over Dhs 15bn every month in the first quarter of the year.

“China is a very important partner to Dubai and we are keen to build strong relationships across industries,” said Dubai Tourism CEO Issam Kazim.

On the tourism front, Kazim revealed that overnight visitors numbers from China had reached 241,000 guests in the first six months of 2015, up 25 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are also aggressively tapping into the potential of corporate holidays from the Chinese market following the largest-ever incentives trip to the United Arab Emirates by beauty product manufacturer Nu Skin last year.

In April 2014, around 14,500 employees of the Chinese corporate flew to the UAE over a period of 10 days, fuelling the country’s tourism revenues.