Useful Advice

Exhibiting at GESS 2010

When arranging your own exhibit, you need to think through your strategy and aims and plan carefully how you will manage your exhibit.
Strategy and aims

* Who do you want to attract?
* What will you tell them?
* How will you stand out amongst your competitors?
* What image do you want to create?
* Will you be promoting or demonstrating particular highlights?
* What promotional materials will you use - such as screens, boards, display stands, posters, leaflets, brochures, samples and merchandise? Invest in having some of your Sales material translated into Arabic for your stand.

Planning

* Do some publicity. Tell potential customers why they should visit your stand.
* Use our PR service to promote your profile at our Exhibition
* Decide who will staff the stand. What technical know-how and communication skills do they need?
* Allow enough time to order and produce everything you need. Investing in some brochures and promotion translated in Arabic is a worth while investment
* List what needs to be done, by when, and by whom.
* Make sure everyone understands their responsibilities.

Practical details

* Book your space as early as possible to get the location you want.
* Look at the online manual to see what equipment is available to hire eg, tables, chairs, plasma screens etc.
* Source the equipment you are providing yourself and organise getting it there. Freight deadlines are crucial to ensuring your equipment arrives on time.
* Make sure your display materials fit the space and work with existing equipment.
* Check fittings - such as power supply and or internet connections - for the electrical equipment you are planning to use on your stand.
* Make sure you have enough stock of products and promotional materials.

Budget

* Work out a detailed budget to keep control of costs.
* Allow some contingency.

Merchandise

Promotional merchandise is designed to remind customers of your business, and reinforce messages. Choose something your customers will use that creates the right image of your business. Again a small investment in material displayed in Arabic will help secure business.
Manning your stand

* Create a warm and welcoming space.
* If you are demonstrating a product, make it obvious!
* Position your staff at the front of your stand to invite visitors in. The Middle East is a hospitable place but you do need to actively encourage them in.
* DO NOT eat your lunch, check your emails or conduct extra work on your stand.
* ALWAYS ensure your stand is manned.
 

With the country's oil on the wane, Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, realised he needed to diversify his economy and has been actively courting investment. Western companies enjoy zero taxation and entrepreneurs no longer need to find a local sponsor before setting up a business. There's also been colossal investment in infrastructure, with new roads, man-made islands and tall towers. Everyone has a different estimate as to the proportion of the world's cranes that are in Dubai - some say 15%, others 55%.

BIG BUSINESS

Dubai has a fondness for the biggest things. The world's tallest tower, the Burj Dubai, is nearing completion and currently standing at a stomach-churning 800 metres plus. Dubai is also planning the world's biggest airport and the largest man-made marina is already in place. Dubailand, whilst still in the planning stages, will take the crown for theme park size, and other whoppers include the soon to be opened 70km Metro link. The government reasons that world records create publicity and interest which are then followed by investment.

The policy appears to work. More than 200 UK firms now have a base here. Dubai's population, one of the youngest in the world, is 80% non-indigenous - drawn by the prospect of big bucks. There's also a buzz in Dubai and optimism that things can be done. The absence of tax oils the cogs and 11 months a year of sunshine does no harm either.

Dubai is in a good position to do business with much of the world. It's just three hours from India, six from the UK and three hours ahead of GMT, and as a location for a Middle East office it's ideal. The world's blue chips have descended on it and they all have needs to be served.

IT and technology are hungry markets. Markos Symeonides, vice president of IT firm Axiom, says that Arabs are keen to buy into western technologies and ideas. "There's a big training market out there; they want to know what's happening in the West and to buy into it," he says.

FREEZONES

Previously, if you wanted to do business in the Middle East you required a local "sponsor" who would take 51% of your business for their troubles. Needless to say, this was something of a barrier to inward investment, unless you were there for oil or gas. But with oil predicted to run out by 2010, Dubai's ruling family set up Freezones, where businesses hold on to the entirety of their company. The biggest is the Jebel Ali Freezone, dedicated to trade and manufacturing, but there are also zones for most other sectors, including medicine, media and IT