Cultures of queuing and Abu Dhabi taxi

I did not post anything here for long time now but I thought to share this thought with you all
My old car broke down again as usual and I had to use the Abu Dhabi taxi
In Abu Dhabi now days you can see a new silver color taxies rooming around the city although there still a shortage of taxis in the city.
And what worsen the situation is the queuing behavior for the passengers, waiting for more than 60 minutes to get a taxi and when you see one from far and feel lucky now that your waiting came to an end suddenly from no where some one jump in front of you and open the taxi door before the taxi even make a full stop,it makes you wonder is it a rude behavior or it is just the different culture, I guess in many cultures people do not queue for things they just jump right to the front of the line .
I would love to see kind of queue handrails in the taxis stop to solve this problem so no one can jump in front of the other or claim he was first in the line.

October 14 is the launch date of the International Middle East Film Festival in Abu Dhabi

Another international event to post Abu Dhabi as a destination for tourist of art and culture, it is obvious that Abu Dhabi is doing a good job positioning it self as culture and art destination.
But I really wonder why I didn’t hear of this Festival earlier and if they just started marketing for this Festival isn’t the date 14 October is very close, my Sixth Sense telling me this festival will postponed.

Unfortunately this sixth sense was not working when I wrote my last post about my business startup so if any one wonder yes it did not work out because lack of commitment and awareness from my partner but I did not give up hope will look in to another way and another partner
However if you want to read more about the International Middle East Film in Abu Dhabi click here or here

Art Paris in Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), has launched artparis-abudhabi.
Created in 1999, artparis is an international fair dedicated to modern and contemporary art which takes place in March of each year, in the heart of Paris, under the elegant glass roof of the Grand Palais, a prestigious location of French culture, now in Abu Dhabi.

A unique approach to become the destination point of the region art market.

artparis-abudhabi , Emirates placeHotel , November 26-29-2007

The Exhibition Management Degree (EMD)

To my readers if there is any, I want to say it is long time again a way from blogging but I was really busy planning and organizing for a key events that fruitfully done, it was long and hectic month but I really enjoy it, I enjoy very much organizing events and my most satisfaction comes when finally I see participants coming together and working together as we planned, it s like the feeling of movie director when finally he is able to watch his movie in the screen.
Today I want to drew your attention to this good news
Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) and UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry) have joined forces to offer regional managers, government officials, project managers, and event organizers the chance to obtain a specialised degree in event management. To read more you can click here

Since I involved in the filed of events and meetings 9 years ago I was always in search for a course or a degree in event management because I believe there is much to learn within this specialization, in the last couple of years I found several courses and degree related to the meeting industry but all of them are abroad and sine I am working full time job you can imagine how difficult it is to enroll in such course.
Yes it is great news for me that this course is coming to Dubai but it is tough one too, most of the course or two module of it as I understand is online course the other two modules are on-site which in this case is Dubai world trade centre, although Dubai is not far from Abu Dhabi but it is difficult task for me as full time employee but I think I can mange to take some days off out of my 35 day annual paid leave
But the big issue is can I pay 3300 Euro which is about 16,000 DH for the full EMD course? I am not sure in my opinion it is really an expensive course especially for a new or unheard of degree yet, however I am going to contact the UFI office for the Middle East which happened to be here in Abu Dhabi to look for a discount or a way to pay in installment
I would also like to hear from any person in the other regions about this course if any one enrolls in it before and reading this.
Another related news to share with you which is an evident of the importance of MICE or the meeting industry for Abu Dhabi and the middle east:
Construction begins on AED 8 billion 'Capital Centre' in Abu Dhabi
An AED 8 billion business and residential micro-city which will become the world's first fully networked exhibition and lifestyle destination.

'As a thriving destination, Capital Centre will have a huge economic impact on Abu Dhabi; the development will directly support business, trade and investment, in addition to stimulating events which themselves encourage the tourism and hospitality sector,'
Simon Horgan, Chief Executive Officer, ADNEC
Capital Centre is being developed under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA).
To read the full press release click here

Abu Dhabi Taxi

Not long a go when I ever needed a taxi in Abu Dhabi it doesn’t take me longer than 1 or 2 minutes maximum to find one but I did not notice till two days a go when my car broke down and I had to take it for service, that it is getting really difficult to find a taxi in Abu Dhabi I wait about 30 to 45 minute every day to find one.
Now I know in the third quarter of this year, and within three years fleets of 7,100 modern taxis operated by private companies would have replaced all existing taxis in the emirate.
I know this is a positive news but in my humble opinion I see the old gold and white taxi as part of Abu Dhabi image now and it should not change, each city in the world have a famous kind of taxi image and Abu Dhabi is that gold / white taxi and right now it is almost the only way of transportation available for many people not to mention the cost that will rise with the new taxies
I asked couple of taxi drivers what is the problem? Why there is a lack of taxi now
They all said that due to the housing rent increases many families moved out from the city to near by cites like Baniyas, Musffah, shahama and other areas so most of taxi drivers prefer to work in these areas and avoid Abu Dhabi congested street and the business there is very good as they say you can make 25 Dh in one trip form Musffah area to Abu Dhabi better than doing the same amount of money driving inside the town

Now this can be a big problem for a city that started to host very good number of big events and exhibitions I know there is other taxi services available like alghazal taxi and NTC taxies but the need of normal affordable taxi that you can take from the street anywhere is still a must and the golden /white taxi is really nice figure to keep, so why not add to it the modern taxies and keep the old one too
So:
1- it lasted for more than 25 years with the golden and white color this an image should not change
2- it is affordable for wide range of low income group of people
3- they can work in parallel with the other modern taxies

More heat fewer events

April is here and May in the corner if we look in to the events calendar of Abu Dhabi we will notice that
From 15 April 2007 to 15 May 2007: there are two major events
1-The Middle East Communications Exhibition Conference, 22-25 April, organizer: Etisalat,
http://www.mecomexpo.com/

2-City Scape Abu Dhabi, 8-10 May, Organizer: IIR Middle East
http://www.cityscapeabudhabi.com/

Than till the end of May there is nothing with the exception of the
Mother Baby and Child Show - Abu Dhabi, 31 May-2 June, Organizer: the Main Event – TME
http://www.motherbabyandchild.com/

Than we have to wait for September to see some other trade shows/exhibitions /business events, hopefully the weather will be much pleasant.

What is MICE?

I noticed many people started to ask what MICE industry is.
So let’s define what the acronym MICE stand for
It is for 4 key for the meetings industry segments

M-Meetings which include all type of meetings

I-Incentive travel and incentive meetings

C-Conference in some countries stand for Conventions, in USA stands for Congress

E-Exhibitions also referred to as Trade Shows, and in some countries the E stands for Events

MICE industry deep-rooted industry but there was no awareness of the importance of this industry in the Middle East and the Arab world in general until lately
We can say it is a part of the tourism industry but it is huge part there is no official statistics for the MICE industry and it is economic contribution, but I am sure if we look at this industry close enough it will not be less than 40% of the tourism industry.
Now the trend world wide is to use meetings industry as a name of the whole MICE industry since every meeting, inactive travel, conference and exhibition at the end is a meeting or gathering of people for different aims.

Valuable comments

I received a comment to my last post “how to” and it was really informative I thought to share it with you all MICE fan and I hope to receive more comments form other MICE fan.

Dear Mr. MICE Fan,

I have no idea how I ended up here, I was doing some research online from my desk office and all of the sudden I've glimpsed your blogs and noticed the word MICE and of course GIBTM, and I decided to scan through your content and I have to say that I'm impressed by your blogs. Who am I?I'm someone who works in the MICE industry for the past 16 months and I have to say it's an amazing industry with lots of potential to grow even bigger in this region, give it some time and you will see everyone in the Middle East speaks MICE!In regards to your questions about how to lunch a new trade show for profit or a new concept of a meeting also for profit and how to promote? all of these are very good questions and GIBTM main goals were to increase the awareness of this industry in people head and starts making others feel interested in joining this industry and benefit from it of course. I would suggest if you ever needed any assistance with how to market a trade show and all of the information that are related to it, you are more than welcome to contact me directly and I’ll be more than happy to share with you few thoughts and case studies of how can you establish a marketing strategy for a trade show, on the other hand, don’t forget that our friends from Reed exhibition are super nice and very cooperative and if you ever approached they will never reject to help and assist you, it’s one of their goals as a company as well which is to educate the market about how to be in this business and to benefit from it also. Most important advise I would like to share with you is to remember that there are about two or 3 important organization or association that are the Kings of this MICE industry one is called SITE http://www.site-intl.org/The society of incentive and travel executiveThis association is so rich in knowledge and experience about the MICE industry and I recommend you join them as a member specially that a Middle Eastern chapter is almost ready to operate and function in the region therefore I recommend you to check it out.The second important association is ICCA the international congress and convention association http://www.iccaworld.com/ another powerful global association that you can gain so much from since they are a pro in the convention industry and of course they have a Middle Eastern chapter as well, another way of increasing your awareness about this MICE industry which can also guide you to more contacts of the trade shows industry as well. On the other hand you have also, MPI Meetings professional International a very well kn won organization that focuses a lot on international meetings industry, http://www.mpiweb.org/So long for a short message, forgive me, just wanted to share few thoughts to help you out, all the best and keep your blogs a life, there are people who benefits and will benefits always from it everyday.

God bless, Take care

How to

I do heavy surfing on the net looking for something related to MICE, there is much useful information related to MICE weather it is in the technology side the management and planning side and many other all related to how to manage and plan an event, but I did not find something useful or a guide related to how to market your startup event lets say I want to lunch a new trade show for profit or a new concept of a meeting also for profit how to promote it? How to attract participant to register and exhibit or participate in this event? How to repeat it and make it annual event? and how to make it stand in the crowed , so I suggest if any one expert in marketing for trade show start up please write something or leave a comment here

GIBTM Opening

First thing that Organizer of GIBTM “Reed Travel Exhibitions” will learn from Abu Dhabi experience that you never plan Education session or seminar or anything that have tight time constraints in the early morning, especially the opening day while there is an official ceremony and VIP and government official are coming for the opening.
So I already made big X over the first educational session that was from 9 am to 10 pm and decided to give the second session a try which was form 10 am to 11am
But unsurprised it is cancelled because the official opening of the exhibition did not take place yet and they shifted the whole two sessions to the next day
Moral of the story: Learn from Mistakes of Others, and again I have to find some time tomorrow morning.

Emirates Photography Competition

Just wonderful photo I liked from my visit to Emirates Photography Competition in Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation

GIBTM - Gulf Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings Exhibition

I know it is long time a way from blogging almost one year , but it seem that the case for many UAE bloggers some of them have been blogging for more than a year but all of a sudden they jammed , some one should study this trend so we can understand why?
However I always wanted to resume writing but as usual work and family are keeping me busy. Now GIBTM is the best occasion to restart writing in here GIBTM is very new exhibition in Abu Dhabi and the whole gulf area even the whole middle east it is one of the Reed Travel Exhibitions portfolio of meetings and incentives events.
As far as I know there is only 3 exhibitions of it is kind that organized by reed travel Exhibitions, one in Barcelona, Spain the other in Beijing, china and the third one is in Melbourne, Australia , and now in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The most important feature to me about this Exhibition is that it combine educational seminars in the filed of meetings and exhibition industry and at the same time it is a show for the events venues, meeting planner and travel services around the world, I was always waiting for a similar event to happen close to me to be able to attend it and now they came to my town no way I am going to miss it, I am really looking forward for The Professional Education Seminars
GIBTM , taking place at the ADNEC exhibition centre in Abu Dhabi, from 13-15 March 2007.