At Breakbulk Middle East, as with all Breakbulk events, the health and safety of our visitors, exhibitors and staff comes first. Our parent company Hyve has issued global measures that will be applied across all events, along with the measures determined by the Dubai World Trade Center. The global Hyve health and safety measures are grouped into four areas:
Social Distancing
- Construction Phase: We will provide enhanced guidelines to assist exhibitors and contractors in the set-up and break-down of events, tailored to each venue and location.
- Meeting Areas: All rooms, including conference rooms, meeting rooms and rooms for social functions will be set up according to the social distancing guidance in place at the time of the event.
Protect and Detect
- Enhanced security checks: Where required by local government, we will introduce mandatory temperature checks and real name ID checks, such as those required in China.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): All visitors, exhibitors, colleagues and suppliers will be offered gloves and masks upon request if they do not have their own. Where such measures are enforced by local or national governments for use in public areas, they will be mandatory at our events. We will communicate this in advance, along with a reminder of our responsibility to keep all visitors safe by denying entry to those who are unable or unwilling to comply with all health and safety measures employed by Hyve or the venues.
- Enhanced First Aid & Medical Support: This will be available across all our events, as well as dedicated quarantine areas, if required by local authorities.
- Sneeze Guards: We will use physical glass or plexiglass dividers where possible, and will be providing staff with face visors or masks at busy areas including helpdesks and registration kiosks where frequent face to face interaction is expected.
Cleaning and Hygiene
Enhanced cleaning: We will work with the venues to offer an enhanced cleaning regime throughout each event. Personal hygiene: Hand sanitisers will be made available at high traffic areas around event spaces, including entrances, catering areas and toilet facilities.
Communication
We are monitoring Covid-19 developments very closely and will communicate further updates as they relate to our events and as the situation develops. We are committed to keeping all visitors, exhibitors, delegates, suppliers and partners safe at our events. These updates will be communicated via our websites and emails, in exhibitor manuals and exhibitor zones, and through event signage and announcements.
In addition to our global measures, we will also follow all guidelines from the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA) that has begun organizing a comprehensive plan to ensure the health and safety of all personnel at upcoming events, which are due to restart later this year. Breakbulk Middle East will take place in February 2021, so the most effective and necessary measures will have been tested and in place well before the Breakbulk event.
In June, DWTCA held a virtual stakeholder forum and addressed key regional meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sector leaders to prepare for an accelerated restart of the city’s business events industry as a core GDP catalyst for Dubai’s economy. The agenda focused on preparing a roadmap for the industry to navigate past the immediacy of the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing economic turmoil, to resuming event activities and host a full-fledged and content rich business events calendar for Dubai ahead of global peers.
The discussions centered on readiness measures to guarantee, first and foremost, the health and wellbeing of all visitors, instilling a much-needed sense of confidence in the city’s ability to host them without compromising their personal safety. DWTCA emphasized upcoming deployment of new regulatory standards and encouraged collaborative efforts to ensure effective adoption of the highest international safety and hygiene protocols, as well as preventative and precautionary measures with stringent deployment across all upcoming events and exhibitions, aligned with the guidelines issued by the Government of Dubai.
As the region’s largest business networking destination, DWTC said it is committed to driving the GCC’s post-pandemic industry emergence as a global leader, in close consult and collaboration with event organizers, industry stakeholders, and all relevant government entities.
As a robust strategy for the resurgence of events is currently underway, upcoming events will be conducted in a highly-controlled manner to ensure adherence to the strictest health and safety protocols for public wellbeing. As a result, new regulations will be deployed and announced over the coming weeks as discussed with meeting attendees.
The Breakbulk team will work closely with the venue and will post relevant updates here and in BreakbulkONE, which is released each Tuesday.
