Middle East insight flydubai introduced packages covering insurance for flyers, and Etihad has done something similar.
The remaining gap is European airlift. British Airways and KLM have yet to restore their Gulf services.
Vicente described supporting regular international exhibitors with service support, flexible payment terms, discounts and later contract deadlines – the behaviour of a partner rather than a supplier, as he put it.
For organisers planning 2027, that is the second takeaway. The question is not whether the region wants the business or can deliver it. It is when conventional cover and European routes return, and both are moving in the right direction. British Airways is due to resume service to the area in November 2026.
The venues called each other The most revealing moment of the session came when the panel went back to the last week of February. Al Shanfari’ s first instinct was not to protect his own diary. He called counterparts across the region and offered help – logistics, moving people, hosting events if needed.
He has sent five or six of his own team into other venues to learn, including in Qatar, Dubai and Sharjah, and takes their people in return. An industry still maturing grows faster when best practice travels.
Julfar described a relationship with government that deepened through the disruption, working through the UAE’ s business events committee and, more unusually, at federal level with foreign affairs on when other countries will clear their nationals to travel here.
Al Shanfari drew the comparison with Covid, and the industry came out of that more resilient and more inventive. The region now has to unify its message, because the bookings exist and the job is persuading people to travel to them.
Some of this year’ s improvisation is now permanent. For Vicente, evacuation planning has moved from a compulsory document nobody expects to open into something visible and rehearsed. For Al Shanfari, it is the event mix: a venue that depends on international business alone is exposed, and local events, owned IP, entertainment and consumer shows keep the wheel turning. If he could make one call to himself a year ago, he said, it would be to do more of exactly that.
A show that doubled while the region wobbled The Qatar Event Show is itself an argument for the case its panellists were making. The second edition ran 1-3 September 2026 at DECC, organised by Mangusteen with support from Qatar Calendar, drawing 50 exhibitors and over 5,000 visitors. Attendance rose 48 % and international visitors were up 170 %. Exhibition space and the conference programme both roughly doubled.
The detail behind the numbers is even more persuasive than the numbers. More than 80 % of firstedition exhibitors rebooked. The organisers kept the community engaged between editions with quarterly gatherings and launched an awards programme. The opening drew ministerial patronage.
My second session, on the GCC’ s event technology ecosystem, pointed the same way. Bilingual delivery and data residency are hard requirements here rather than features, which gives regional developers a real opening against the global platforms and organisers a supply chain that is increasingly local.
Asked what an international organiser should take away about doing business here in 2027, Vicente said: think globally, act locally. Al Shanfari made the case for partnerships that work in both directions. Julfar, more cautious, said the goal is not to predict the future but to be ready for whatever it brings.
The evidence sits underneath those answers. Venues across the region are close to fully booked from September to December. Rescheduled business has landed in 2027 rather than evaporating.
The Middle East has had a hard year and nobody in Doha pretended otherwise. But the calendar held, the venues co-operated, and a secondyear trade show in Qatar doubled in size while it was all happening. That is not a market in retreat. It is one waiting for the rest of us to get back on the plane. EW www. exhibitionworld. co. uk Issue 5 2026 37