Dubai will bring together an international community of experts to explore the future of events when the Host Cities 2015 summit returns to the emirate for its 4th edition from 18-19 November.

Host Cities – presented by Emirates Airline – is the largest industry summit to be held in the Middle East. This year it will run under the theme ‘Embracing Future Events’, seeing leading figures gather at Fairmont the Palm to explore how the hosting strategies of cities today will shape the cities of tomorrow.

The summit will identify trends in city strategies for bids, engagement, sponsorship and funding to share knowledge that can be applied to different event types, budgets, cultures and geographies. The voice of the next generation will also be heard with the launch of a special report, drawing on international research to reveal what young people want for, and from, events in their cities and around the world.

The forward-thinking agenda reflects Dubai’s own ambitions and those of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as it looks to welcome the World Expo in 2020, a first for the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region, under the theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’.