THERE has been a lot of talk in the media about whether the Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF) is the place to be if you want to see who is hot property in the Middle East business domain and who is not.
It is not until you actually walk into the buzzing reception hall, complete with an impressive scale model of Jeddah, that you start to develop an appreciation of how significant the event actually is.
Once the stringent security checks are passed, delegates are led into a very busy lobby area, which leads directly to the main conference room where the keynote speeches take place.
There is no doubting where the real action takes place. While business reporters will fill their copy with prose about what the keynote speakers have to say about economic development, it is in the lobby where delegates from big corporations size each other up like heavyweight boxers before making their introductions and exchanging their embossed business cards. This is not just another business event. This is practically a glitzy affair, from the audio setup that would not look out of place at a rock concert, to the world-class catering. There is also no doubt the organizers’ intention was to put on a real show for the delegates.
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Certainly, the people behind the JEF are quietly confident that the event has been nothing but a success so far.
The Gulf Research Center (GRC), which is in charge of the logistics and day-to-day running of the forum, have had to deal with people turning up at the last minute, which inevitably leads to the headache of not having enough entry passes to hand out. Yet GRC’s Business Development Manager Amr Al-Amawi and Marketing Manager Flo Weisweiler take such challenges in their stride. Both are heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the JEF.
They say that the event attracted more delegates on the second day than they thought it would. According to their figures, 1,600 people attended, far more than in previous years.
“We don’t want to say that it is better than in previous years. We’re saying that it completes and adds to what we had in previous years. Having it back at the Hilton, it just makes a bit more sense. The speakers are more relaxed, staying at the same venue where they are speaking,” Al-Amawi said.
He added that while there were delegates who only attended to network and made new contacts, there were others who had definitely expressed an interest in the presentations.
“Naturally, they would come to meet new people and network, but at the same time, you will see more people attending the sessions than in previous years, because this year it is more content-driven,” Al-Amawi said.
“We also find that most people here have an agenda to attend one or two specific sessions according to the field they work in,” added Weisweiler. He said that the biggest challenges for GRC was organizing the event while based in Dubai and handling the very late registrations i.e. those who turned up without giving any prior notice.
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Undoubtedly, one of the biggest pluses for the organizers has been the quality of the ushers, who are there to direct attendees and answer queries.
Fluent in English and Arabic as well as displaying immaculate manners, these young Saudi men represent the cream of an emerging generation of hardworking youth, which can only bode well for the Kingdom as it continues its stringent policy of ‘Saudizing’ the workforce.
Al-Amawi said he had only cherry-picked the best and drilled into them the importance of presentation.
One of the ushers, Thamer Al-Haddad, said he is only working for the duration of the JEF before returning to his day-job at Saudi Arabian Airlines.
A polite young man with a degree in finance from the College of Business Administration, he added that the few years he spent in America gave him the tools to be selected as one of the few to work at the forum. “I still have the accent. I keep up with the sports over there (such as) NBA and NFL. I keep reading a lot about sports over there,” he said.
“We couldn’t bring in some ushers because they weren’t that good in English, so we actually had to outsource.”
One thing was certain. The wonderful ushers certainly went a long way to dispelling the current negative stereotypes associated with young Saudis.
