The eighth edition of AccessAbilities Expo will take place at the Dubai World Trade Centre from the nineteenth to the twenty first of October, bringing the region's assistive technology and accessibility industry together in the United Arab Emirates for three days.
The exhibition is organised by Nadd Al Shiba, which has run the event since its launch, and the organiser reports that about two hundred and forty exhibitors are booked for this edition. The show is held under the patronage of the Dubai government and has built its programme around assistive devices, mobility equipment, rehabilitation services, accessible design and the employment of people of determination, the term used in the Emirates for people with disabilities.
AccessAbilities Expo has also announced a strategic partnership with REHACARE, the German assistive technology exhibition held annually in Duesseldorf. For a regional show, a tie to an established European trade fair is the kind of arrangement that brings in exhibitors who would not otherwise travel, and it signals an intent to position Dubai as the Gulf's default meeting point for the sector rather than one of several competing venues.
Why the timing matters
Accessibility procurement in the Gulf has shifted over the past five years from a compliance exercise to a budgeted line in large infrastructure and hospitality projects, driven by national disability strategies in the Emirates and Saudi Arabia and by the accessibility requirements attached to major events. That has created a buyer base of government departments, hospital groups, airport operators, developers and facilities managers rather than only specialist clinics, which is the audience an exhibition of this size needs in order to sustain itself.
For executives in the sector, the event is one of the few places in the region where distributors, manufacturers and public sector buyers are in the same hall. Its position in the calendar, immediately before the Gulf's winter run of large exhibitions, means it tends to catch procurement teams while next year's budgets are still being set.
Details
AccessAbilities Expo takes place at the Dubai World Trade Centre in Dubai. Registration and the full exhibitor list are published by the organiser.
