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This paper aims to outline Emaar Hospitality Group’s (EHG’s) role as the official hotel and hospitality partner for Dubai Expo 2020.

This paper draws on personal insights from an industry and trend perspective, aligned with the Expo 2020 Dubai theme, “Connecting minds, creating the future,” and its three sub-themes: mobility, sustainability and opportunity.

As an outcome, EHG’s commitment to Dubai Expo 2020 encompasses the provision of rooms and hospitality, meeting and events venues including outside catering, a hotel of the future innovation stand that reflects the company’s commitment to innovation in the Middle East, gender parity (female-male ratio) employment of women and youth, support to small- and medium-sized enterprise and global apprenticeships for six months during the Expo 2020 event an a commitment to sustainable economic growth.

This is an original, experience-based piece that focuses on an Expo 2020 operator’s viewpoint.

This concluding paper aims to review the contribution made by this theme issue to the body of knowledge on Dubai as a host city for Expo 2020 and the impact of such mega events overall on the host destinations.

A content analysis of the contributing articles selected for this theme issue was undertaken.

The summary paper highlights the key takeaways relating to Expo 2020 Dubai that will help inform policy making and decision-making for stakeholders in Dubai’s economy.

Retaining and nurturing the vibrancy of Dubai’s cosmopolitan and diverse socio-economic landscape in the run-up to and after the Expo are as much an opportunity as they are a challenge. The outcomes and recommendations emanating from the papers provide stakeholders with the tools to consider and mitigate risks.

This theme issue makes a significant scholarly contribution towards understanding the dynamics of Dubai as a destination on the verge of hosting a mega event and captures the zeitgeist of the pre-event planning and post-event strategies in “connecting minds, creating the future”, which is the theme of Expo 2020.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) theme issue “Expo 2020: What will be the impact on Dubai?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editor and writing team.

This paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editor to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

This paper provides a framework to facilitate discussion between academics and practitioners engaged with Dubai’s Expo 2020, identifies ways of improving competitiveness as an events destination and contributes to thinking about sustainable development before and after the event. The outcomes of a broad-ranging collaboration yield fresh insights, a deeper understanding of the issues and an array of possible responses to the theme issue question.

The theme issue outcomes provide lines of enquiry for others to explore and they reinforce the value of WHATT’s approach to collaborative working and writing.

The collaborative work reported in this theme issue offers a unified but contrarian response to the theme’s strategic question. Taken together, the collection of articles provides a detailed picture of the on-going preparation for Expo 2020 and plans to ensure continued growth in the post-Expo phase.