The Hotel Show Dubai is the largest hospitality event in the Middle East and Africa, and has been serving the hospitality industry for 16 years. The Hotel Show Dubai is the largest hospitality event in the Middle East and Africa, and has been serving the hospitality industry for 16 years.

The reinvention of the traditional dining experience to keep pace with the Middle East’s casual eating revolution will be a running theme at this month’s The Hotel Show — the largest meeting place for the hospitality industry in the Middle East and Africa.

Taking place from September 17-19 at Dubai World Trade Centre, the annual trade show dedicates half a day to its fourth annual Vision Conference.

During this, a series of expert-led discussions and features will see 15 industry professionals gather at the event’s to assess opportunities, challenges and trends in F&B.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS FROM THE HOTEL SHOW 2015

Discussions will range from how best to revamp dishes for a younger customer to how to provide the variety and value that millennials seek, while maintaining a restaurant’s identity.

“We have seen a huge shift from fine dining to casual all across the region. People are more value focused now. When they are offered a casual dining experience, people expect to be paying a lower price for great food and want to feel more relaxed in their dining. There is now big time demand, so much so that all of the top brands around the world are now going casual or upper-casual,” said F&B consultants Kroma managing director Nicholas Couvaras, who will be part of the conference on September 19.

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Kuwaiti chef Ahmed Al Bader is set to give the keynote speech that will kick-off a series of panel discussions focused on the Middle East’s developing F&B scene. The topic of his talk will be ‘Food as a Feeling: trendsetting in the GCC, reinventing classics and loving food’ and he will be followed later in the day by a six-person panel discussion called

‘The casual revolution: street food, sharing caring, grab and go, menu engineering for new trends and improving revenue performance along the way’.

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