Organisers are holding regular meetings to discuss how to safely bring in visitors
Expo 2020 Dubai, despite being pushed back to next year, is still aiming to bring in 25 million visitors from across the region and the world.
That is according to Manal AlBayat, chief sales & marcomms officer at Expo 2020 Dubai, who told Arabian Business officials are constantly looking at ways to safely bring in visitors.
“We’re lucky in the sense that our site is big enough that we don’t necessarily have that problem, but we’re constantly doing simulations and checks to make sure, whether it’s looking at visitation numbers, whether it’s looking at how many people per hour can we let in with proper distancing; should that number be exceeded, how can we put in the measures.”
She said: “As of right now, we are not changing our projections, we are not changing our numbers. We are still working towards them, but we are keeping a close eye to see if we need to change. We’re still about ten months away and a lot can happen in a month’s time, let alone ten months time.“
Hotel establishments across Dubai and the wider GCC are counting down the days to the 182-day mega event, expected to give occupancy rates a major boost. Even in the build-up to the event, UAE hotels are expected to enjoy accelerated recovery compared to other Arab nations.
Most recently, Rove Hotels announced it would be the first and only company to open a hotel within the Expo 2020 Dubai site. Slated for an October 1, 2021 opening, Rove Expo 2020 will sit in the central Al Wasl Plaza, right in the heart of next year’s World Expo spectacle. Though many hotels are located in close proximity to the Expo site, this new Rove property will be the only hotel within Expo 2020 itself.
Due to the ongoing threat of the coronavirus, officials made the difficult decision to postpone Expo 2020 Dubai to October 1 2021 until 31 March 2022, though keeping its Expo 2020 Dubai name.
AlBayat revealed to Arabian Business that the construction of all Expo-related assets is expected to be completed by this year’s end.
“Obviously we’re working very closely with the countries to make sure their pavilions are also ready,” she said. “Different countries are going through different phases in terms of Covid and its impact, but we have regular meetings with them and even from a country perspective several countries have completed or are on the verge of completing their pavilions.”
-hoteliermiddleeast.com