Dubai summit to explore profitability

The business event market has long been an important means of bringing professionals together to share interests, explore issues and generate new ideas, and very often leads to further collaboration, innovation and profitable business relationships.

Judging by the feedback received from the attendees, this month's SportAccord Convention 2010 Dubai at the Atlantis Palm Jumeirah is an example of how a networking event has helped participating businesses to succeed.

Being held from April 25 to 30, the eighth Annual SportAccord Convention brings the sports industry elite together with high-ranking officials to discuss the big issues facing the sports world today along with regional and global perspectives on developments in sports, and it provides an exclusive environment in which to network in between sessions and at special events, fostering knowledge-exchange, collaboration and new business development.

The CEO of Sport Event Denmark, Lars Lundov, said: "The SportAccord Convention has been a vital, annual platform for our intensified networking with international partners, mainly our two primary target groups: international sports federations and the international sports media."

Sport Event Denmark's mission is to make Denmark one of the most prominent hosts of sports events in the world. The company has participated in the SportAccord Convention since its inception in 2003 and was recently both a Silver and Gold Sponsor. CEO Lundov attributes their success in hosting the upcoming 2011 UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) Road World Championships to an initial dialogue between UCI representatives and Sport Event Denmark that took place at SportAccord Convention in Berlin in 2005. "Our presence at the convention has proved to be a great success," Lundov continued.

"From an international survey we conducted, we know that the majority of our international target groups have come to know us very well through our annual participation at the SportAccord Convention. We also know that during the past few years, several major world sports championships have been placed in Denmark by the rights owners on account of an initial contact at the SportAccord Convention."

IEC in Sports, an international media company active in the distribution of television rights to sport events to a wide variety of media platforms, has attended every SportAccord Convention since 2003 and has steadily added to its portfolio of television properties as a result, most recently concluding a major deal to represent the International Association of Athletics Federation.