Al Safeer Educational Program Shows Importance Of Hosting International Congresses

Al Safeer Educational Program – an initiative of Dubai Convention Bureau (DCB) - has taken place from 17-19 December, bringing together various stakeholders to drive best practice in bringing associations’ conferences to the emirate.

The objective of the program - taking place for the first time - is to share knowledge on how individuals and organisations can locally work with the convention bureau in their city to host more international conferences and raise the profile of their city within a particular sector.

Dubai Convention Bureau partnered with the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) to deliver the contents with regional specialist input from DCB. ASAE represents more than 21,000 association executives and industry partners representing 10,000 organizations.

Through this partnership, Al Safeer Program target individuals and organizations who are members of international associations and can help the city to attract more congresses. The program is not only new in Dubai and UAE but is a first for the whole region, and raising awareness is key to achieving the program objectives.

The agenda of the program was intensive and varied, including: how associations work; how associations begin; the importance of associations holding meetings abroad; the role of (and criteria for selecting) congress ambassadors; how congress ambassadors can promote Dubai and the UAE in any association meetings; and best practice for other convention bureaus in working with congress ambassadors.

The educational program consisted of group presentations for organizations with large network of association members, and a group presentation to Dubai MICE stakeholders.

Several organizations welcomed the concept from its beginning, including the Dubai Health Authority, the Society of Engineers in UAE, Emirates Medical Association and IEEE UAE Section. Interest was strong from the start, with an Al Safeer Stakeholder event at the JW Marriott Marquis involving more than 120 participants. Certain events over the three-day Al Safeer program were filmed, to disseminate the collected expertise to a prestigious international audience.

H.E. Essa Al Maidoor, Director General of Dubai Health Authority and President of the Society of Engineers - UAE, said: “We are very keen to support the Al Safeer Educational program as the objective of the event is aligning with our vision “Towards Best Engineering Practices in the UAE”. We believe that the educational program will share knowledge and best practices on how individuals and organizations locally work with convention bureau in their city to bring more international conferences which raise the profile of their city within that sector. It will further promote Dubai as the ideal destination to host various events due to its unique accessibility with direct flights from all continent, excellent infrastructures with state-of-the-art Convention and Exhibition Centre and Dubai have hosted countless international exhibitions, conferences and other events. Dubai has emerged as a global city and a business hub over the past years. The event was of great value to our members and we sincerely hope that as proof of concept it will lead to many more similar programs in the future”.

Said Hamad Bin Mejren, Executive Director for Business Tourism at DCB: “We are proud to have brought this important new event to the calendar for the first time. Dubai is becoming one of the world’s top cities for hosting business conferences, for reasons of location, climate, infrastructure, facilities and expertise. We are therefore pleased that we can not only encourage associations to hold their congresses here in Dubai, but we can teach others about the lessons we have learned in getting to where we are today”.

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Dec 19, 2012

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