How to make your brand stand out at GITEX, ATM and other Dubai exhibitions

To stand out at a Dubai exhibition, decide who you need to meet before the show, give journalists a reason to come, build a stand that explains itself from the aisle, and follow up within 48 hours. The audience is there: according to Dubai World Trade Centre's 2025 Economic Impact Assessment, the 108 large-scale events it hosted that year drew about 2.18 million attendees, 44% of them from overseas. Most of the result is settled before the doors open.

This guide is for founders and marketing directors exhibiting at GITEX Global 2026 or planning the 2027 season in Dubai. By the end you will have the show dates, a plan for meetings, press and creators, a brief for the stand, a follow-up routine and one number to judge the show by.

A show is won in the eight weeks before it and the 48 hours after it; the days on the floor collect what was arranged.

Which Dubai exhibitions matter in 2026 and 2027?

GITEX Global 2026 moves its exhibition to a new venue. The GITEX Summit runs on Monday 7 December at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), and the exhibition follows from Tuesday 8 to Friday 11 December at Dubai Exhibition Centre, Expo City Dubai. The 2025 edition, held at DWTC and Dubai Harbour, convened more than 6,800 exhibitors and 2,000 startups from 180 countries.

A new venue resets the visit: regulars who know DWTC will be looking for you at Expo City, so every invitation, email signature and meeting confirmation should carry the hall, the stand number and a map pin. The UAE National Day holiday is expected on 2 and 3 December, the week before the show, so finish the invitation round before it and confirm afterwards.

108

Large-scale events at Dubai World Trade Centre in 2025

2.18 million

Attendees at those events

44%

Share of those attendees who travelled from overseas

5.6 days

Average stay of an international attendee per event

Source: UAE jobs: Dubai World Trade Centre events support 94,000 jobs in 2025

Three sectors draw nearly half the crowd. DWTC reported that healthcare, food and beverage, and technology events drew 48% of all attendees at its large-scale events in 2025 and 59% of the international ones. Those are the territories of GITEX, Gulfood and World Health Expo, the show that grew out of Arab Health.

Dates move, so check the official site before every booking. Arabian Travel Market 2026, first planned for 4–7 May, was moved twice, to 17–20 August and then to 14–17 September. Keep deposits, flights and creator bookings on terms that can move with the show.

Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin around 8 February, with Eid al-Fitr on 9 or 10 March. That puts Gulfood less than a week after Eid, and its eight-week outreach across the holy month.

What should you decide before exhibiting at GITEX?

Start with the number the show has to return, and make it a number of qualified meetings rather than badge scans. A qualified meeting meets a definition written before the show: the right kind of company, a person who decides or recommends, and a need you can serve in a period you name. Give that definition to everyone who will work the stand.

Then work backwards from names. List the companies you want to meet, find the person at each, and offer a specific slot on a specific day. An open invitation to drop by is the easiest one to ignore over four busy days.

The best meetings may happen away from the stand. International attendees at DWTC events stay an average of 5.6 days per event, according to the same 2025 assessment, so a breakfast, a dinner or an office visit around the show is realistic for the people who matter most.

Registration is not attendance. For HiFi Hi-End Show, a niche audiophile exhibition we promoted across the GCC, the funnel ran in five stages: awareness, education, registration, confirmation and attendance. An exhibitor needs the same confirmation stage: confirm each meeting the week before and the day before, with the name of the person they will meet.

• A goal set as a number of qualified meetings, with the definition written down
• A target list of companies with a named person at each
• One person on the team who owns the meeting calendar
• Invitations that carry the hall, the stand number, a map pin and two or three slots
• Confirmations the week before and the day before each meeting

If the show is your first public moment in the UAE, it should sit inside a wider launch plan. Our 90-day playbook for launching a brand in the UAE sets out what comes before and after.

How do you get journalists to your stand?

A stand is not a story. During GITEX, your pitch competes with the organiser's own announcements and the largest exhibitors' launches, so it needs news: a product launch, a partnership, a regional first, a figure from your own data or a senior spokesperson with a view worth quoting.

Build the press list six to eight weeks out, by beat rather than by outlet. In the UAE that means the business and technology desks of English-language dailies such as Gulf News, Khaleej Times and The National, Arabic-language titles, sector trade titles and, if Saudi buyers matter to you, Saudi outlets. Write the English and Arabic versions of each pitch for their own readers; a line-by-line translation reads like one.

Accreditation is the organiser's process: for GITEX Global 2026, journalists register through an online media portal that asks for press credentials, and the GITEX Press Office handles media enquiries. Your job is to know which reporters on your list are covering the show, then send each one the stand location and an interview time.

Send the release under embargo a few days before the show opens, with photographs, a spokesperson biography and a one-page fact sheet, and keep a morning slot free each day for interviews. A journalist who cannot get to Expo City can still write from a good kit.

We have done press work for exhibitions themselves. For INNOPROM Saudi Arabia, an industrial exhibition in Riyadh, we combined PR and digital campaigns within a very limited timeframe and secured 29 media publications, 24 of them organic, in Arabic and English, with syndication through news aggregators including MSN News. The audiophile show was covered for free by at least six industry publications.

What this means for exhibitors: agree the news before you brief the stand designer, because journalists write about the story, not the stand.

Can creators film at your stand in the UAE?

Yes, but a creator who advertises your brand needs a permit. As of October 2026, individuals who advertise on social media in the UAE for a business they do not own need an Advertiser Permit, now issued by the National Media Authority, a rule in force since 1 February 2026 that covers paid and unpaid promotion alike. Creators visiting from abroad can obtain a visitor permit through a licensed UAE advertising or talent agency. This is a planning summary, not legal advice; check the current rules with the National Media Authority or your counsel before you sign anyone.

For a show, the practical step is to ask for the permit number before you send the brief and keep it with the contract.

Choose creators whose audience is your buyer. At a technology or healthcare show, that is more often a practitioner with a following on LinkedIn or a sector podcaster than a lifestyle account. Give each one a brief: what to film, which spokesperson to interview, what stays off camera and when the content goes live.

Creators work best with a role on the day. For ARTDOM Riyadh Art & Design Congress, a design and collectible art fair we promoted, we built a pool of 25+ influencers around authentic organic content rather than paid placements and ran the activations end to end: briefing, scheduling, on-site coordination and content supervision. Together with paid media, partnerships and WhatsApp remarketing to registered attendees in the final days, the campaign delivered over 6,000 registrations against an initial target of 4,000.

What makes a stand read from ten metres?

From ten metres, a visitor walking the aisle has time for a name, one line and an image before deciding whether to stop. Put the company name high, where heads do not cover it, and add one line that says what you do and for whom, in English and in Arabic where your buyers read it.

Test the artwork before it goes to print. Put the back-wall design full screen on a monitor across the office and ask someone who does not know the product to say what the company does. If they cannot, cut words until they can.

The demo should show the product working in the time a visitor will stand still, with someone beside it who asks one qualifying question before showing more. Long walk-throughs belong in the booked meetings, at a table or in a closed room at the back of the stand.

Plan the content before the show, not on the floor. Write a short shot list for each day, give one person the single job of filming, and post the same evening: the spokesperson interview, the demo, the busiest moment on the stand, a clip from each creator.

Shoot crowds from behind, or get consent before you publish anyone who can be identified. As of October 2026, Article 44 of Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021 on Countering Rumours and Cybercrimes punishes using an information network or IT equipment to invade someone's privacy without consent, including by photographing people in a public or private place or disclosing the photos, with at least six months in prison, a fine of AED 150,000 to 500,000, or both.

How do you follow up and measure cost per qualified meeting?

Follow up within 48 hours, while the visitor still remembers the conversation and, if they flew in, may still be in Dubai for another meeting. A follow-up that sends what was promised on the stand, from the person who promised it, has a reason to be opened; a brochure from a generic address does not.

1. 1Log every conversation on the day

   Who they are, what they need, what you promised and who owns the next step, in fields agreed before the show.

2. 2Sort the leads each night

   Meetings that need a proposal, contacts to keep warm, and badge scans with no conversation behind them.

3. 3Send personal follow-ups within 48 hours

   From the person who held the meeting, with what was promised and a dated next step.

4. 4Feed the rest with content from the show

   Demo footage, the spokesperson interview and any coverage, in English or Arabic.

Cost per qualified meeting is the number that compares a show with every other channel. Add up everything the show cost: space, stand design and build, shipping, travel and hotels, staff time, the evening event, creators, PR and paid media. Divide by the meetings that met the definition you wrote before the show, then follow those meetings to proposals and revenue in the months after.

Space is usually the biggest line, but not the whole bill. In a late-2025 survey of exhibitors at US trade shows, the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) found that exhibit space took 40.5% of total spend, up from 37.9% in 2017. The figure is American, but the point travels: a budget built on the space quote alone comes in short.

Test the invitation the way you would test an ad. When we promoted INNOPROM to Saudi business audiences, Arabic-language campaigns brought in leads at 15–20 AED each, against 30–40 AED in English. An exhibitor can run the same comparison on meeting invitations and count which language fills the calendar.

What this means for exhibitors: if a show costs more per qualified meeting than your other channels, change the plan for next year before you change the size of the stand.

What should you do in the six weeks before GITEX Global 2026?

GITEX Global 2026 opens its exhibition on 8 December, about six weeks after this guide is published, so a team starting now is already at week six of the timeline below. Do the first two rows together this week: set the meeting goal, build the target list and the press list, and send the invitations.

For the 2027 season, count back from the opening day. Week eight for World Health Expo on 25 January falls at the end of November, just before the expected National Day holiday. For Gulfood on 15 March it falls in mid-January, and the outreach then runs through Ramadan; for Arabian Travel Market on 3 May it falls in early March, around the expected Eid al-Fitr.

The cases in this guide come from promoting exhibitions themselves, and a brand on the floor needs the same work. Our exhibition and trade show marketing covers the invitations, paid media, content and follow-up around a show, and our PR and media team writes the releases and press kits and pitches editors in English and Arabic.