Meeting segment strengthens for Middle East
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The Middle East is the fastest growing international association meeting market in the world according to an International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) study. This study was unveiled at the on-going eighth edition of Gulf Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings (GIBTM).
The event witnessed a line up of dignitaries which include HH Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, minister of culture, youth and community development and board member of the National Council of Tourism and Antiquities along with Sultan Al Daheri, acting executive director of tourism sector.
As per ICCA, the total number of regularly-occurring, internationally-rotating association meetings is increasing by 100% each decade and has been consistently doing so for the last 50 years, with no signs of a slowdown.
Martin Sirk, CEO of ICCA said: “The Middle East joined the Information Revolution more recently than most regions. Now that excellent meetings infrastructure has been developed, governments have created knowledge strategies to underpin their economic development agendas. We are confident that the region will enjoy even greater international meetings activity in future.”
The report highlighted that between 1998 and 2002, there were 532 association meetings in the Middle East. That figure had grown to 905 between 2003 and 2007 and then expanded once again between 2008 and 2012 to 1,776 association meetings.
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