Events add value to Dubai GDP

Dubai's events industry remains a strong and growing contributor of economic value to the emirate's gross domestic product (GDP) and leisure events ranked on top for attracting a majority of the people.
This was revealed on Monday by the Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing (DTCM) in its inaugural 'Ticketed Events in Dubai' 2015 report. The new event industry whitepaper provides a snapshot of the performance of ticketed leisure events hosted in Dubai across three main categories - entertainment, sports and culture.
According to the report, which only captures events applied for via Dubai's e-Ticketing platform, there were 656 system registered ticketed leisure events in 2015, representing 1.1 million tickets sold.
Leisure events constituted 27 per cent of the total volume of unique ticketed events hosted during 2015 and accounted for 60 per cent of the number of tickets sold for the period.
The report says online bookings gained popularity as the maturity and security of e-commerce transactions grew within the domestic market and near-region.
In most event categories, between 45 to 69 per cent of purchases were made online, reflecting the trend of increasing affinity and comfort within the UAE and GCC markets to use both electronic and mobile payment channels, particularly for event-related purchases.
"Close collaboration across all the fundamental levers of sector development, between government, public and private sector stakeholders - from venue developers and operators, to event organisers and the network of promoters and distributors - has been instrumental in laying the foundations for Dubai's success to date. Looking ahead to 2020 and beyond, as the events industry prepares to cater for the evolving needs of an even more diversified target of 20 million visitors to the emirate, sustained cross-industry partnership will be even more crucial to retain Dubai's status as a leading global event destination," DTCM CEO Issam Kazim said.
In a bid to better unify the industry, 2015 saw the full implementation of Dubai's e-Permit platform, which was the primary source for the report. The platform caters for all processes pertaining to licensing and permitting for events to be facilitated through a unified online gateway managed by Dubai Tourism.
On the consumer enablement side, the e-Ticketing platform creates a unified distribution gateway for the convenient purchase of tickets for all types of registered ticketed events in Dubai, with seamless integration to a highly secure mobile and electronic payment gateway.
- abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com