Can Dubai rival Barcelona, Paris in MICE sector?

Dubai can rival the world’s top MICE hotspots – Barcelona and Paris - in the near future.

PwC director real estate and hospitality advisory services Vikram Loomba was speaking at a panel discussion at the Arabian Hotel Investors Conference and said Dubai’s infrastructure – especially in Dubai South - holds the emirate in good stead.

“There’s been a lot of discussion as to what happens to all the development in Dubai South after the Expo 2020. And one of the things we try to educate people is the exhibition facilities will lend themselves very well to the MICE market,” Loomba said.

“If you look at the two biggest MICE markets in the world - Barcelona and Paris – each one of them attracts 10 million MICE visitors a year. Dubai is going to be one of those few cities that has the potential and infrastructure to actually cater to large global conferences,”

Loomba also highlighted Dubai’s potential in the wellness and leisure segments. He said: “The wellness tourism market was valued at US$563 billion globally, while the wellness and lifestyle real-estate market was valued at $119 billion in 2015.

“This market is experiencing an 11% growth in CAGR from 2015 to 2016 and is set to cross the $1 trillion mark by 2020. When you look at it from number of trips; this sector had 691 million trips in 2015, out of this the Middle East only got 9 million trips, with Dubai getting a third of the share – 3 million trips,” Loomba said.

“If you look at the global opportunity for the sector, and how under captured and underserved it is for the region – there is a long way to go and there is tremendous potential,” Loomba affirmed.