The Duty Free and Travel Retail industry in the region continues to overcome the challenges of the global economic slowdown. The performance of the Gulf and MENA region continues to be encouraging.

Over the past years the growth of global duty free and travel retail sector has developed strongly with travel retail sales reaching US $ 39 billion last year. The Middle East accounts for 7.4% of the mix.

Global passenger traffic grew by 6.6% in May, driven by strong international demand across all regions with the exception of Africa (-16.5%), where key markets like Egypt continuing to feel the impact of political unrest in several North African countries. Total international traffic grew by 7.4% to 137.9m in May and by 8.5% to 611m in the first five months of 2011.

The MEDFA role is to present the region and its potential to a wide audience. TheMEDFA Conference has established itself as the most important Duty Free and Travel Retail event in the region attracting in excess of 400 top quality executives from around the globe.

This years Theme is “Creating a future”, and the conference program will examine the current geo-political climate in the Middle East from the Mediterranean up to the Gulf. The mid-term and long-term effects of this political and social unrest will be discussed, while industry insiders from the affected markets will give an update on how business has picked up in the latter part of the year.

Innovation will also be a key theme of this year’s program. A number of sessions will look at how all stakeholders can create a brighter future for the business – be it though innovating the product mix, the retail design, the staff’s approach to the customer and even management’s approach to staff.

It has been a decade since the formation of the Middle East Duty Free Association; please join us to celebrate during the MEDFA Conference taking place this year in Dubai at the Al Murooj Rotana Hotel, on Nov 21-22, 2011.

We would like to thank our early bird sponsors for their generous support: Emirates Airlines joined us as the Official Carrier of the conference, our social events and Platinum Sponsors; Dufry Sharjah, Dubai Duty Free, Traveller Limited, Patron Spirits, and LeSportsac.

We are pleased to announce the conference Media partners: The Moodie Report, Duty Free News International, Travel Retail and Duty Free Market, Frontier, Travel retail Business, Travel Retail International, Gulf Africa Duty Free Magazine and the Decision Makers.

We encourage you to register for the MEDFA 2011 Conference, become a sponsor and contribute toward the success of this prestigious event.

Finally, we would like to welcome our four (4) new members:

• Dubai Airport Company represented by its VP Commercial, Mr. Eugene Barry
• Cowrie Enterprises Ltd represented by its CEO, Mrs. Mariem Ben Cheikh
• Flemingo International Limited represented by its Managing Director, Mr. Rasik Thakker
• Etihad Airways represented by its Manager Duty Free, Mrs. Anna Brownell.

For information about MEDFA, contact:

Micheline Enkiri
T: +971 4 2996663