Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (Adnec) announced that its key venues including Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Al Ain Convention Centre (AACC) collectively welcomed more than 1.516 million visitors across 480 local and international events in 2016, reflecting an increase of 30 per cent over 2015.

This translates into a total economic impact of Dh3 billion ($816.5 million) for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, a statement said.

The company announced its 2016 results at a press conference at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre headlined by Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, Group CEO of Adnec, and several senior Adnec officials.

Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs and chairwoman of Adnec, said: "Abu Dhabi has embarked on an ambitious plan to develop diverse economic sectors that has yielded outstanding results over the past few years. Along with its sister national companies, Adnec has played a crucial role in realising this vision through driving significant growth in the extremely important business tourism sector."

"We look forward to continuing our efforts to solidify Abu Dhabi’s leading status as the business tourism capital of the region. We thank our wise leadership for its unwavering support in our endeavours to promote business tourism through leveraging the emirate’s competitive advantages, such as its state-of-the-art infrastructure, advanced facilities, and strategic location at the heart of a thriving region with an immense economic potential.

“Adnec has a wealth of Emirati talent among its personnel, who lead various initiatives designed to achieve long-term business tourism growth. Our efforts to promote Abu Dhabi as an ideal venue for specialised events have helped us bring some very important international events to the Middle East for the first time,” she added.

Al Dhaheri said: "We are pleased with the outstanding results we achieved in 2016 despite the diverse challenges that the MICE industry faced regionally and globally. Our numbers validate the effectiveness of our portfolio expansion into sectors prioritised in the Abu Dhabi Plan 2030 and Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030.

“In 2016, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Al Ain Convention Centre hosted 43 exhibitions including 15 new additions, marking a 10 per cent surge. The numbers testify to the success of our strategy of attracting a wide spectrum of new events to Abu Dhabi while supporting our existing exhibitions.”

Meanwhile, the total number of conferences hosted by the venues in 2016 increased by five per cent to 22. In addition, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre won the hosting rights to 12 new international and local conferences including many high-profile international events that will take place in Abu Dhabi in the near future.

Al Dhaheri said: “In 2016, Adnec Group contributed to the creation of more than 16,844 job opportunities in the UAE across business tourism sectors. Furthermore, we supported the occupancy of hotels in the country through delivering a total of 528,639 guest nights– a 27 per cent increase over 2015.

“Adnec has a dedicated team of highly skilled Emiratis who are the key drivers behind the company’s phenomenal growth over the past few years. Towards end-2016, Emiratisation at Adnec reached 60 per cent, up from 55 per cent in 2015. In addition, qualified Emiratis hold 82 per cent of our senior management positions.”

In 2016, Adnec also achieved significant savings in direct and fixed costs, reiterating the success of its sustainability programme dedicated to promoting energy efficiency and rationalised use of resources.

“Our sustainability programme demonstrates our priority to support the UAE’s efforts in sustainable development. Our waste management systems work round-the-clock to ensure safe waste collection, segregation and storage. In 2016, we reduced our CO2 emissions by 228,979 tonnes through recycling 676,382 tonnes of materials,” Al Dhaheri said.

In addition, Adnec Services, a subsidiary of Adnec Group that offers specialised services for exhibitors and event organisers, delivered an outstanding performance that surpassed all expectations. The company achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 93 per cent, the highest in the global exhibitions and events industry.

The results of a society perception survey conducted by an independent global information and measurement firm last year showed that the awareness of Adnec’s contribution to Abu Dhabi’s economic development among the residents of the emirate increased from 86 per cent in 2015 to 90 per cent in 2016.

ExCeL London, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adnec, welcomed 2.8 million visitors across 367 events by end- 2016, compared to 313 events in 2015. Furthermore, the hotels owned by Adnec Group – Hyatt Capital Gate, Aloft Abu Dhabi and Aloft London ExCeL – delivered solid results on the back of strong performance of the hospitality sector.

"Adnec will continue to offer unlimited support for all the events hosted at our venues and work with the organisers towards their continued success. We will spare no effort in attracting high footfall of international visitors to make the participation of exhibitors at our events as productive as possible. Furthermore, we will continue to develop our facilities and services to maintain their competitiveness and ensure that they constantly meet the evolving requirements of the business tourism industry,” Al Dhaheri concluded. – TradeArabia News Service