North entrepreneurs to bridge Gulf

Oct 17 2007 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

Hub where global markets meet is worth a visit OBJECT ID=19966361, method=default

JOHN CARTMELL is business development director at Tyneside event management firm The Whyman Group. The firm had planned to embark on a UKTI trade trip to Australia next month until Mr Cartmell heard a recent speech by Emirates Airline president Tim Clark.

“Tim stressed that Dubai is a region of significant growth and that there are numerous opportunities available in the conference and exhibition field in the region. We investigated the market further, spoke with some of our contacts in Dubai and ultimately decided to take the opportunity to spend some time there before flying on to Sydney.”

Dubai, with a prime location between Europe and Asia that makes it ideal for hosting events on a global scale, is a potentially huge market for The Whyman Group. The city hosts vast international events, including Gitex, one of the world’s biggest technology fairs. The group will focus on promoting events in Dubai to specialist industries.

It has already won the contract to host the Thinking Digital conference next May, which will be hosted in Dubai’s ultra-modern Internet City development.

Mr Cartmell said: “We see a major opportunity to promote a very specialised event management service. We provide a delegate management service for conferences and events across the globe.

“As it is web-based, time and distance are no longer issues and we are finding that international clients are enjoying the ability to outsource the headache of registering delegates, issuing joining instructions and taking payments, etc.”