GITEX has run since 1981 and is now among the largest technology exhibitions anywhere, filling the whole Dubai World Trade Centre and overflowing into Dubai Harbour for the Expand North Star start-up programme. Government technology, enterprise software, telecoms and AI, with national pavilions from several dozen countries.
Around 200,000 is the number given for 2024, and it is held here as an estimate for two reasons taken from the release itself: the same figure appears in its 'About' block in the future tense — 'will welcome 200,000 tech executives' — so the outturn may be a restated forecast, and no basis is given. Useful for order of magnitude, not for comparison between years.
Its function is regional: this is where enterprise and public-sector technology is sold into the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, and a significant share of the year's regional contracting is initiated in that week.
October is the start of the comfortable season, and GITEX week is reliably one of the three most expensive hotel weeks of the Dubai year.
PlanningAn October trade window at DWTC; the start-up strand Expand North Star runs alongside it.
Dates
Season
Computed from the recurrence rule we record for this entry, not copied from a listing. A date marked ~ comes from a calendar conversion and the observance may fall a day or two either side.