Most operators in this region would rather you did not read the number in the title. We would rather you read it from us than from a board member forwarding an article the week before you sign.
In its Pulse survey run between 25 March and 6 April 2026, with 193 valid responses from incentive travel professionals, SITE recorded net sentiment toward the Gulf States at minus 82.1% among United States respondents. It was minus 72.4% among Europeans, minus 54.2% in the rest of the world and minus 21.4% in Asia. Net sentiment is calculated by subtracting those planning less travel to a destination, or ruling it out entirely, from those planning more or newly considering it. It was the sharpest decline of any region measured, while Canada gained.
That is your peer group, measured this year. Roughly eight in ten of your American colleagues are negative on this region right now.
Two honest observations about that number, and then the part that is useful.
The first is that it measures sentiment, not incidents. SITE itself notes that demand is highly sensitive to perceived risk even where conditions on the ground may differ from the perception. That is not a defense of the destination; it is a description of how the number was built. Planners rotate away from regions perceived to be near a conflict.
The second is that it does not matter whether the perception is fair. You have a qualifier population, a board, a general counsel and a duty-of-care obligation. If your CEO's spouse will not board the aircraft, the program has failed regardless of what any index says. Sentiment is a real operating constraint, and an operator who waves it away is telling you they will also wave away the next inconvenient thing.
So the useful question is not "is it safe". It is what happens if it stops being fine while my group is in the air, and who has already thought about that. What follows is what belongs in your RFP, in the order it matters.
Verified on 5 September 2026, with sources named throughout.
1. Who is the named crisis contact, and what can they decide alone?
Every operator in every destination writes "24/7 support". Almost none publishes a name, a number, or the one thing that actually determines outcomes: spending authority.
At two in the morning local time your office is closed. Dubai is UTC+4 year round, eight or nine hours ahead of New York and eleven or twelve ahead of Los Angeles. If your ground contact has to reach a manager, who has to reach an owner, before rebooking forty rooms, your group sits in a lobby for three hours.
Ask for four things in writing:
- The name of the person on duty for your program dates
- A direct number that a human answers, not a switchboard
- The spending limit, in dollars, that person can commit without prior approval
- The escalation path and how long each step takes
An operator who cannot answer the third one has support staff, not an operation.
2. What does force majeure actually say, and who bears which cost?
Force majeure clauses in this industry are frequently one-directional: the supplier is excused, the buyer is not refunded. Read it before you sign, not after.
The specific questions:
- What events trigger it, and is airspace closure named? This region has seen rerouting affect flight times, so it is not hypothetical
- Does a government travel advisory change trigger it, and at which level? Advisory levels move, and a program contracted at one level may be traveling at another
- If it triggers, what happens to money already paid to third parties, and what happens to the operator's own fee?
- Is there a postponement right as an alternative to cancellation, and for how long are funds held?
The answer you want is not "we are flexible". It is a clause.
3. What does the insurance cover, and what does it exclude?
Here is where buyers routinely accept a sentence instead of a document, including from us until we say otherwise.
Operator liability and traveler insurance are different products. An operator's public liability policy responds to claims arising from the operator's own conduct. It does not cover your delegate's medical evacuation, their trip cancellation or their lost baggage. Those are your travelers' to buy, and on a program of this type they should be mandatory rather than offered.
What to ask the operator for, specifically:
- The certificate, naming the insurer, the limit of indemnity and the period of cover
- The geographic scope. A policy written for inbound operation inside the UAE does not follow a group to another country
- The exclusions, in writing, particularly for war, terrorism and civil unrest. Most general liability policies exclude these, which is precisely the category your board is asking about
- Whether errors and omissions cover is included
For reference, the accreditation standard that ADMEI applies to destination management companies, ADMC, requires general liability cover including errors and omissions at a minimum of USD 2 million. That is a useful yardstick to hold any operator against, in any destination.
Our own position, stated plainly: our operation carries public liability insurance with Sukoon Takaful, for our inbound operation in the UAE. Policy details go to your vendor file on request.
4. How are client funds protected?
This is the question that separates a procurement conversation from a polite one, and in this region it deserves to be asked bluntly, because advance payment is the norm here. Ground operators in the UAE pay suppliers before services happen.
Ask directly:
- Are advance funds segregated, or do they sit in general working capital?
- What is the refund mechanism if the program is cancelled by either side, and on what timeline?
- Is the deposit schedule tied to when the operator actually has to commit money to hotels and transport, or is it front-loaded for the operator's convenience?
- If the operator fails, what happens to your money?
There is no shame in an operator saying funds are not segregated, because most are not, anywhere. There is a problem with an operator who will not say.
5. What is the cancellation ladder, in dates and percentages?
Not "standard cancellation terms apply". A table, with days before arrival and the percentage payable in each band, and a separate line for what is non-refundable from the moment of confirmation because it was paid to a third party.
Hotel blocks, event venues and charter transport have their own ladders, and those are the ones that actually drive the numbers. An operator who has read their own supplier contracts can show you where their ladder comes from.
6. What is the contingency for the specific things that go wrong here?
Generic contingency plans are worthless. Ask about the failure modes of this destination:
- Heat. Outdoor programming from roughly June to September carries real physiological risk, not discomfort. What is the indoor alternative, and is it contracted or hoped for?
- Airspace and routing. If flight times shift, what happens to a tight arrival day and to pre-booked transfers?
- Hospital access. Which facility, how far from the program hotel, and who accompanies a delegate?
- A delegate who cannot enter. Visa requirements for the UAE vary substantially by passport. What is the process, what is the lead time, and who owns it?
- Religious and civic calendar. Ramadan changes operating hours, service patterns and what is appropriate to program. Its dates move each year against the Gregorian calendar
7. Ask for references from the last twelve months, and call them
Three buyers who ran programs comparable to yours, recently, with contact details. Not logos on a website, and not a photograph of a beautiful dinner, which anyone can put in a proposal without having produced it.
Two supplementary questions worth stealing from the wider events industry: ask the hotel whether it pays a commission for referring that DMC, which tells you whose interest the recommendation served. And ask the operator directly: what is the worst emergency you have handled, and what did you do? The answer, or the absence of one, is informative either way.
What the evidence says about how buyers actually choose
There is a second SITE finding from this year that is worth holding next to the first, because together they describe the whole situation.
In a Pulse survey of 286 industry professionals in May 2026, SITE ranked what buyers value in a DMC. "Local Expertise and Authentic Insight" came first at 3.47 out of 5, followed by "Reputation and Relationships" at 3.32. Those two together scored an average of 4.6 times higher than the six lowest-ranked factors, which included Technology and Systems, Scale and Organizational Reach, Financial Stability, Legacy and Market Presence.
Read that carefully, because it is counterintuitive and it cuts against the sales material you normally receive. Buyers are not selecting on fleet size, headcount or corporate lineage. They are selecting on whether the operator actually knows the place and whether anyone will vouch for them.
Which is the argument for asking harder questions rather than bigger ones. The operator who can answer section 1 through section 6 precisely is demonstrating exactly the thing your peers say they weigh most, and the size of their vehicle fleet is close to the bottom of the list.
Where we stand
We are not going to tell you the number in the title is wrong, or that perception does not matter. It matters, it is your problem as much as ours, and pretending otherwise would be the first sign that we would handle the rest of your program the same way.
What we will do is answer every question above in writing, for your file, before you commit anything.
World Zaya Tourism L.L.C, trading as Zaya Group, is licensed by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism under license 1580956, issued 10 December 2025, for Inbound and Outbound Tour Operator activity, at Office 312, Rigga Business Centre, Building 3001, Al Murqabat, Dubai. The license number is verifiable directly with the DET; we publish it because you should not have to take our word for the existence of the company you are about to wire money to.
If you are evaluating the UAE for a group and your file needs the risk section answered, send us the questions and we will answer them one by one. If you want the operational ground first, start with how we work, MICE in the Emirates, or the checklist in how to choose a DMC in Dubai.