Tahula is quickly becoming a global powerhouse in the events industry, a joint venture between informa, the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity Programming and Drones, and the events Investment Fund, Tahalef is driving Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 transformation from leap and deepest to cityscape.
Global and Black Hat MEA company has launched 21 event bans in just 3 years, making Tahale a key engine of economic growth in the kingdom.
Joining me this morning is Michael Champion, CEO of Tahalo, as well as Saudi Arabia's leading business events company.
Good morning, Mike.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
How are you doing, Rey?
Good morning.
Well, I'm doing very well, thank you so much for joining us.
Well, Tahaf has become a key player in positioning Saudi Arabia as a global events destination.
So how are your flagship events helping to attract international investors as well as drive confidence in the kingdom's broader economic transformation?
You know, Saudi Arabia has always been a compelling and potential investment opportunity for international investors, but what we're seeing now is that the capital flows going into Saudi are becoming extremely interesting.
If you were to take any of our flagship events, the likes of Leap, for example, which has in only a short amount of time become the most attended tech event in the world, there's over 200,000 attendants that comes to this.
2000 investors are on the investor program alone and they'll fly in and they'll conduct many thousands of meetings with potential startups and invest in those.
And then if you were to take a look at Cityscape, which is happening next week, Cityscape attracts a smaller amount of investors, but they're institutional investors, the likes of BlackRock and Heinz and BNP Paribas, for example, Capital Land.
These will fly in principally looking to speak with, um, you know, funds and and entities in Saudi that are really financing the giga projects and some of the major developments that are happening in Saudi Arabia.
So I think it's all down to the fact that the Vision 2030, of which is a big program developed by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
And has developed which is really to transform and diversify the economy, one that's based on hydrocarbons to one that's really sort of enabled in many different areas and strategic areas.
Those are the areas that we work in and those are the areas that we're finding such a lot of interest from international investors to participate in.
And as you mentioned, there is growing focus on quantifying the real economic value of major events.
So can you share how Tahale's portfolio translates into GDP contribution as well as job creation, not to mention foreign investment inflows for Saudi Arabia.
It's a really interesting question because in the trade that I'm in, which is organizing mega events, it often gets sort of overlooked.
But let me give you an example of this.
The football World Cup is in the soccer World Cup in Qatar recently that had an economic impact over its construction and lifetime of $17 billion 1.7 billion dollars.
That's its own calculations.
Now we've actually done our own calculations on the events that Tahalo have managed to do over the last three years since it's been founded from 23 to 25, and our economic impact is conservatively estimated at $17.6 billion.
For those of you who are into athletics, the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, for example, that was, that was around $11 billion you know, just for context.
So these events, they bring in hundreds of thousands of attendants from abroad.
These people are obviously taking planes.
They're, you know, they're staying in hotels.
They're also transacting and making deals on site, and it's the deals on site that are quite interesting.
For example, Cityscape, which is happening next week, this is not just any ordinary property show.
The last time this event happened, we recorded $5.1 billion of transactions on the show floor.
That's people like you and me going to buy, you know, an apartment or, you know, our first villa, something like this.
And when you think of the sheer volume of transactions that that move to be able to record that, that's really sort of shaping and changing that market.
And Michael, as you mentioned, Cityscape Global is now recognized as the world's largest real estate event.
So what do you think has driven that success and how does it reflect the evolving ambitions of developers, investors, and urban planners across the region?
So great question.
I think really you have to look at the macroeconomics of it, you know, for a long period of time, I think Saudi Arabia was always a G20 economy without trying that hard.
I mean, obviously it tried, but it wasn't really focusing on, on, on areas outside of hydrocarbons, oil and gas, etc.
And since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has liberalized the economy and actually encouraged the diversification of that economy, we're seeing major areas start to flourish from healthcare to tourism to technology, investment, and startups.
But when it comes to an event like Cityscape, really what's driving that is not just the Vision 2030 overarching agenda.
But it's the deployment of government capital into creating these enormous giga projects and you know, to put this in perspective, the giga projects that are happening in Saudi Arabia, the ones like that, you know, that people have heard of like Neon, like Daria, like Kia, like the Red Sea Global projects, and there are many more of these that are financed that are happening, and many that will be ready on time.
And you know, when When you put it into perspective that the amount of money that has been invested in this in real terms is far greater than even the Marshall Plan that bailed out and basically rebuilt Europe after the Second World War.
What we're seeing here is an enormous undertaking of, of capital but also of human construction.
Yes, and Michael, as you mentioned, Saudi Arabia's diversification journey relies on building globally competitive industries beyond oil.
So how does Sohalo's model of event creation, as well as international partnership, align with Vision 2030's broader diversification goals?
OK, great question.
So, Tahalo is not a trade show organizer.
We're not in the business of just doing sort of conferences on on things that will return a very healthy sort of, you know, sort of profit.
Yes, we're a for-profit enterprise, but we only really operate in in areas that the government considers to be strategic.
And the reason why we operate in areas that the government considers to be strategic. is because we want to be able to scale very quickly, um, events to help make Saudi Arabia become a global events hub.
Now, you don't become a global events hub without having world class.
Very substantial events and you don't get world class events without them being strategic because you need the support, the backing, and the full alignment of government partners in order, you know, in order to do that.
You mentioned earlier on that Tahalo is a joint venture of Informer and the Saudi Federation and also of the events Investment Fund.
Well, the events Investment Fund. is actually a subsidiary fund of the National Development Fund, and it's also chaired by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.
So we want to make sure that the events that we do really chime with the priorities of the government and by doing that we get all of their sort of impetus and advice and backing behind it as well.
And finally, Michael from FinTech to Real Estate, the Middle East is transforming into a hub for world-class conferences and exhibitions.
So what trends are shaping the region's event industry today and how are you preparing for what's next?
Well, I think, I think Tahalof is already a leader in Saudi Arabia and it's certainly by size one of the leaders in the region.
We were founded in January 2023, and since then we've we've grown substantially.
We've attracted some of the most interesting global IPs in events, things like Money 2020, which you guys will be really aware of.
They launched an addition in Saudi Arabia, partnered with us at Tahalef, and that.
The event in its first edition became the most attended Money 2020 event globally.
In fact, I think it's the most attended FinTech event worldwide, and such is the appetite for meeting people face to face and in person.
So we're going to see more of that.
But the other thing that we are going to see is some homegrown marks as well.
About 4 or 5 years ago we founded LEAP.
Leap, as you know, has now become one of the major tech events in the world.
And that's a homegrown Saudi brand, and for the first time that event, that brand is going to export and it's going to happen in July next year in Hong Kong at the invitation of the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong authorities over there because they're interested in bringing that over there too.
So we're going to see more of.
The more international organizers moving into Saudi Arabia, but you're also going to see more homegrown events and more original content coming from out there as well.
Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
The FinTech TV team will be there live with coverage from Cityscape Global all of next week.
Thank you.
Thanks, Remy.
