A New Middle East

For the past few years, show organizers who set their sights on the Middle East focused on the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to launch their shows.

Times have started to change, with new venues being built in other countries around the region, such as Egypt, Qatar and Bahrain.

Each of these locales hopes to grab a piece of the Middle East tradeshow pie by offering state-of-the art convention and meeting facilities.

A new convention center will open in 2011 at Cairo Expo City, located in Cairo, Egypt’s Nasr City between the airport and the city’s central district, with 100,000 square meters (1,076,391 square feet) of exhibit space, a 5,000-seat auditorium and a 30-story, 600-room hotel.

“Cairo is, with this new project, actively preparing to be the leading convention and exhibition center in Northern Africa and the Middle East,” said Tom Dahl-Hansen, executive adviser to the chairman of Cairo Expo City and the General Organization for Intl. Exhibitions & Fairs.

He added, “Cairo Expo City aims to be one of the best exhibition and convention centers in the world, maybe not in size, but in uniqueness, combined with ancient landmarks and leisure activities.”

According to Dahl-Hansen, five international architects competed to design the project. Zaha Hadid, from the United Kingdom, won.

The building’s design is inspired by the natural topography of the Nile Valley, Hadid said.

“As the exhibition spaces require the greatest degree of flexibility, we wanted to ensure that all the public spaces and formal composition of Cairo Expo City relate to the surrounding Egyptian landscape,” he added. The Shanghai-based Shanghai Construction Group will construct the project, with additional financing provided by the Chinese government, according to Dahl-Hansen.

The Cairo Expo City campus, run by the government-owned General Organization for Intl. Exhibitions & Fairs, also includes the existing Cairo Intl. Convention and Exhibition Centre and Cairo Fairgrounds, which offer nearly 35,000 sq. m. (376,736 sq. ft.) of additional exhibition space.

“Both the Fairgrounds and CICC (already) have a hectic program of national and international exhibitions and events,” Dahl-Hansen said.

Two of the largest tradeshows currently held at the fairgrounds and CICC include the Cairo Intl. Fair and Cairo Book Fair, which use around 60,000 sq. m. (645,834 sq. ft.) of exhibit space and draw more than 2 million visitors during a 10-day period each year.

“In spite of the financial crisis in the world, the exhibition and convention market in Egypt is still fast growing,” Dahl-Hansen said, “and it seems (to have) no sign for any slowdown. Egypt is the largest consumer market in the Middle East, with 78.7 million inhabitants, the second largest economy in Africa.”

Another country looking to catch the eye of tradeshow organizers is Qatar.

Slated to open in Doha, Qatar, in 2011, the Qatar Natl. Convention Centre not only will boast 177,000 sq. m. (1,905,212 sq. ft.) of space, but, if all goes well, it also will obtain the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certification.

Currently, there is just one LEED-certified convention center in the world that is rated gold, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.

“In terms of its environmentally sustainable construction, the venue is on course to achieve gold status under the LEED green building rating system,” said Paul D’Arcy, general manager of the QNCC.

Some of the center’s green features will be state-of-the-art systems for water savings, energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality, as well as solar panels on the roof.

“To capitalize on Doha’s endless sunshine, (more than) 3,600 sq. m. (37,850 sq. ft.) of solar panels on the center’s roof will produce 12.5 percent of our total energy requirements,” D’Arcy said.

The QNCC, managed by AEG Ogden, already has lured several conventions its way:

• World Petroleum Congress
• Intl. Conference on Environment Mutagens and Human Population
• Middle East Turbomachinery Symposium

According to D’Arcy, he and his team also are working to attract more than 55 prospective regional and international events from a wide range of medical, scientific and technology-based fields they hope to book at the center through 2021.

Even then, he added, there’s still room for growth.

“The tradeshow industry is still in its infancy (in Qatar) and offers tremendous potential for organizers,” D’Arcy said.

Just north of Qatar is Bahrain, which will have its own new convention and tradeshow facility, the 145,000 sq. m. (1,560,767 sq. ft.) expo@bahrain, to show off in 2013.

As part of its plan to attract as much business as possible, Debbie Stanford-Kristiansen, former deputy CEO of the Bahrain Exhibition & Convention Authority, was hired as CEO of the new venue.

“I am honored by the exciting opportunity to take the helm of the new exhibition and convention center,” Stanford-Kristiansen said.

Expo@bahrain will be part of a larger development called @bahrain.

“What @bahrain as a whole has to offer is very compelling,” Stanford-Kristiansen said. “Exhibition, meeting and hospitality facilities, some of the world’s finest retail brands and restaurants and varying entertainment elements, all of which will make for a more vibrant destination for exhibitions and conventions.”