Advertising concession at Dubai Airports’ Concourse D up for grabs

Advertisers are set to battle it out over an exclusive advertising concession for Dubai International Airport’s new concourse.
Dubai Airports, which owns and manages Dubai International and Dubai World Central airports, is inviting advertisers to submit expressions of interest before February 15.
Concourse D is set to open in 2015 and will be linked to Terminal 1. It is currently under construction as part of the airport’s US$7.8 billion (Dh28.65bn) 2020 expansion plan and is expected to increase capacity to 90 million by 2018.
Concourse D alone will have a capacity of 18 million passengers a year.
Airport advertising has become a significant revenue stream for Dubai Airports, the company says, and it has recently been using non-aeronautical revenues to fund further airport development.
“As one of the busiest airports in the world and given the global attention generated by the recent opening of Concourse A, Dubai International offers potential bidders a very attractive proposition,” said Eugene Barry, the senior vice president of commercial at Dubai Airports.
Last year, JC Decaux won the bid for Concourse A.
“Airports provide a captive environment within which a brand can engage with a variety of target audiences,” said Reda Raad, the chief operating officer for the region at TBWARaad, the advertising agency. “As such, airport advertising is also becoming more sophisticated, so as to capture the attention of the broad range of cultures and nationalities it is on show to.”
The advertising industry has been bouncing back in the region after declining during the Arab Spring. According to a poll conducted by The National, regional spending on advertising is set to exceed $5bn this year, reversing a decline of 10.3 per cent in last year’s figure of $4.7bn, according to the Arab Media Outlook, published by the Dubai Press Club.
Most of the regional advertising agencies are expecting double-digit growth this year.
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