Dubai World Trade Centre, DWTC, has revealed that its hospitality division – Hospitality by DWTC – catered for 1,056 high-profile external events in 2018, serving a total of 415,293 guests.

DWTC continues to strengthen Dubai’s competitiveness as a regional event destination.

“The impressive results for 2018 are a testament to the competency of the entire Hospitality by DWTC team – from chefs to service staff – who are the future of the industry and its driving force. The team has unrivalled expertise in providing catering solutions for high profile events of all sizes, both at the venue and off site – from weddings and gala dinners, to banquets and concerts – which is further supported by a well-developed external event sales, operations, and logistics outfit,” Mohammed Al Jumairi, Vice President – Event Operations at DWTC, said.

Its AED22 million kitchen with 3,650m² of working area, allows for full in-house production and has been awarded the highest Dubai Municipality rating every year since opening in 2003 – only a handful of establishments to achieve the distinction. A testament to the team’s ability, its kitchen was also awarded Best Large Caterer by the Dubai Municipality and its exemplary workstations earn it HACCP /ISO22000K certification.

Hospitality by DWTC has 148 chefs from 19 countries and more than 300 professionally trained service staff that cater for over two million people per year and can serve 15,000 covers a day. In 2018, DWTC’s catering fleet, consisting of nine refrigerated trucks, six 305-tonne dry trucks, and three buses, covered a distance of 435,396 km – equivalent to 10.86 times the distance around the world.

By numbers, one of the biggest events DWTC catered to in 2018 required 12,641 man-hours for preparation, 26 food trucks and buses to transport the goods to the event venue, as well as 194 chefs and more than 400 operations staff to prepare and serve the food. The service required 54,000 items of glassware, 25,000 cups and saucers, 32,400 items of cutlery, and delivered 27,000 meals which required 1,400 kg of chicken, 916 kg of fish, 846 kg of beef, 850 kg of vegetables, 742 kg of rice, 348 kg of potato and 320 litres of cream, among other ingredients.

Al Jumairi added, “Innovation, creativity, world-class execution and services are the cornerstones of our approach to ensure that we continue to raise the bar for our offering, benchmarking ourselves against the best in the world and reinforcing Dubai’s position on the culinary map.”

Some of the team’s biggest contracts in 2018 include: the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Cyber Quest 2018, Jubilee Games, Dubai International Boat Show, MEBAA, Sharjah Book Fair, ICCA Gala Dinner, as well as several royal weddings across the UAE with an average attendance of 2,000 per wedding.

Exciting events coming up this year include the Special Olympics World Games 2019, Dubai Airshow, among others.