Small but perfectly formed, the second Business Travel Show Dubai received a mixed reception from exhibitors who felt the corporate travel market was missing in the visitor mix.
Taking place between October 20 and 21 at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, the Business Travel Show (BTS) had a big neighbour down the road in GITEX the massive IT exposition that annually notches up 100,000-plus visitors.
And, it was that rival that many exhibitors blamed for the perceived poor turn-out of the target audience of BTS, those corporate travel buyers.
While numbers are currently being audited, exhibition director Sally Maltby was expectant that total figures might be up to the 2000-plus mark reached last year, although she conceded that exhibitors had expressed the view that there were too few corporate buyers.
"We had a surge on the second afternoon and this influx did include some good names," she said. "While I don't know the full statistics yet, we will be analysing these to assess who was there, where they came from and the reasons for attendance."
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For the big names such as British Airways and Hilton, there was a feeling of disappointment at the poor turnout, but also a commitment to drive the show forward in future.
"There seemed to be fewer buyers," said BA area commercial manager, Paul Starrs. "Feedback from my team is that companies were telling their travel people to come along, but they did not show up."
"It has been a little disheartening, but we all need to work together as this is a forum for the sector, for buyers, suppliers, TMCs etc, and we have to make it a success."
Guy Epsom, Hilton's regional director of sales & marketing, similarly emphasised the positive benefits of a forum for the business travel sector, but said the jury was still out on the success of BTS this year.
"The clash with GITEX was unfortunate; and there seemed to be a lack of pre-publicity, while we might also question whether it is the right time in the business cycle of Dubai to introduce a specialised show when the sector is less developed than elsewhere," he said.
"But, we can all learn from the experience, and the [ATN-hosted] VIP panel discussion and cocktail party were fascinating, with the right audience of buyers and suppliers, which led to lively discussions."
For Radisson Edwardian, regional director of sales Shadhad Jahanbani said the original Business Travel Show in London had similarly got off to a slow start. He suggested a ‘wait and see' attitude to evaluate the Dubai event.
"It felt quiet but we did have a fair amount of hits with our registration ‘zapper' and we will see if they come good," he said. "Expectations were high and I was hoping to meet more corporates as opposed to existing contacts - the organisers should invite more buyers."
A similar view was expressed by Rached Arfaoui, corporate sales manager for Qatar Airways, who stressed that Emirates Airline was absent from the show -Â a fact he believed might have affected numbers.
"Emirates would have been a big draw in this market," he said.
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