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