Expo 2020 finalises ticket sales partners
Ticketing structure, sale details to be announced by first quarter of 2019
Expo 2020 Dubai is gearing up to start selling tickets to the six-month event that kicks off in mid-October 2020.
The body is currently in talks with three of its premier partners — Emirates, Etisalat and Emirates NBD — for reselling tickets for the event.
“They are our potential partners who will be ticket resellers for the event [as they are in the consumer-facing business],” said Gillian Hamburger, senior vice-president, Commercial, Expo 2020 Dubai.
She said that ticket sales pricing along with the types of tickets will be announced by the first quarter of next year.
“That’s the earliest any Expo has released ticketing details. Historically, expos launch tickets about six months before the event starts. We are two-anda-half years out right now. We will be well ahead of historical process of when we start talking about tickets.”
We are looking to tour operators and others abroad to be selling tickets in their home markets to consumers before they even get to the UAE.” Gillian Hamburger | Senior vice-president, Commercial, Expo 2020 Dubai
Pricing under study
But when the tickets will actually go on sale is something Expo would only make known by the first quarter of next year, Hamburger said, adding that the pricing study is under way at the moment.
These would include one-day tickets or more (than one day), and season tickets, which would be predominantly for the UAE market.
While Hamburger did not divulge the ticket price brackets, she said it would be “competitive” with the other world expos held in the past.
The process is aimed for the Expo to achieve its 25 million visitor target by 2020, Hamburger said.
“These are predominantly B2B [business to business] transactions wherein we are currently looking for companies that would buy tickets from us and then sell on to consumers in a package opportunity,” she explained.
While Expo’s premier partners will actively be selling tickets directly to the market, the search is also on for tour operators in the home market as well as other global markets that will bundle Expo tickets with other offerings, be it F&B (food and beverage), transportation and hotels.
“There are a number of ways that the operators can bundle tickets into an offering. We are looking to tour operators and others abroad to be selling tickets in their home markets to consumers before they even get to the UAE,” Hamburger said.
She added that the authorised ticket resellers will receive commissions on an incremental scale based on the number of tickets a travel company sells among all of their travel packages.