MICE CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE

By Dr. Zuzana Adamson

Part 1

There are visions and opportunities that our B2B media and magazine MICE CEE simply cannot miss out on, so it was with great pleasure that we accepted the invitation to a MICE trip to Dubai in February 2025. The trip was organised by the Dubai Convention Bureau and Dubai Business Events for six MICE media representatives from all over the world.

The MICE trip offered us a veritable plethora of experiences and meetings with representatives of congress and exhibition centres, the governmental space centre, MICE venues and luxurious MICE hotels suitable for organising congresses, conferences, business events, creative parties and private events; compared to other MICE destinations, Dubai shines like a star in the MICE sky. And it has a clear vision and plan for the future: to place itself as a leading MICE destination globally. As Dubai goes from strength to strength, the lucrative MICE sector should grow from AED 20 billion to AED 33 billion by 2030.

The five-star Anantara Downtown Dubai hotel, where our group of six was accommodated, is located in Business Bay, the city’s central business quarter within walking distance of the largest and busiest shopping centre in the world, the famous Dubai Mall. The Anantara Downtown Dubai offers 252 luxury rooms and suites and for your MICE events and activities, there is a Grand Hall for about 550 people, and ten flexible meeting rooms ready for hosting elegant events in the city centre with stunning views from the 26th floor.

Guest rooms are very comfortable, with harmonious interior design, which are pleasant and well managed. From the luxury tub in the bathroom, you can see the city and its famous skyscrapers including the iconic Burj Khalifa, the water canal that runs around Business Bay, or the ornate green waters of the hotel pool. Service is excellent. The proximity of the Dubai International Airport (DXB, 20 minutes) and the World Trade Centre (10 minutes) makes the Anantara Downtown Dubai very sought after by business professionals and people within the MICE industry.

On Monday, we had a very busy programme, visiting museums which taught us about the UAE’s heritage, culture, traditions and evolution. The UAE’s largest open-air heritage museum is the Al Shindagha Museum.

Locals at the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Centre for Cultural Understanding (SMCCU), located in the Al Fahidi historical neighbourhood in old Dubai, invite visitors to explore Emirati culture and gain a deeper understanding of the UAE’s customs, traditions and history.

The Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) is the principal authority for planning, supervising, developing and marketing Dubai’s business and tourism sectors. We learnt during our meeting in the DET offices that Dubai offers the best support for running events – such as congresses and conferences – among 22 countries in the region. This high level of professional support is highly attractive to international event organizers.

The futuristic Museum of the Future was opened on February 22nd, 2022. The building is decorated with Arabic poetry written by the city’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum: “We may not live for hundreds of years, but the products of our creativity can leave a legacy long after we are gone.”

The Museum of the Future is a place of inspiration; its objective is to bring light into times of darkness. Amidst uncertainty, the unknown and cynical future, it is necessary to take steps forward with determination and conviction, and together create a better world. Visitors can walk in and try the attractions including virtual reality, AI, as well as the creativity and poetry of these and other modern technologies.

Some venues and spaces can be used for events, fashion shows, corporate celebrations and parties.

You can also have a conversation with an artificial synthetic human. I asked a simple question – What time is it? – but I got a wordy philosophical response akin to a dissertation about the relativity of time, and the perspective that we should take to look at it! The artificial synthetic human didn’t want to tell me its name – in their opinion, my question was too personal. Well, good luck…

Our six-strong MICE group visited DEC – the Dubai Exhibition Centre in the Expo City. This large exhibition centre was built for the World Expo in Dubai 2020 (2021). Construction and development work continues, and in 2026 it will offer 140,000 square metres of exhibition space. In comparison with the WTC, where, for example, every year they organise the ATM (Arabian Travel Market), here at the DEC there are large exhibition spaces for those expositions demanding large spaces and areas.

Despite the ongoing construction work, the DEC remains functional, and in this year is all set to host GITEX Global, the largest tech and startup trade fair in the world, in which around 200,000 people will participate. The Expo City is directly connected to a metro station (Dubai EXPO 2020 Station) as well as luxury hotels, restaurants and other important and indispensable buildings.