Interior Fit Out is the latest addition to Project Qatar. This specialized platform zeros in on the ever-growing need for modern fit-out solutions in Qatar to meet the demand of multi-billion projects ranging from sports stadiums to large-scale residential, commercial, and hotel developments.

Interior Fit Out is an ideal platform to showcase a wide range of interior and fit-out materials, applications, and technologies for commercial, residential, hospitality, retail, sports and industrial projects across Qatar.

The exhibition brings together manufactures, suppliers, architects, contractors, consultants, specifiers, facilities managers, and other industry specialists to seize business opportunities, forge new partnerships, and provide world-class turnkey solutions for Qatar’s mega construction projects.

Interior Fit Out is held is held under Project Qatar next to other dedicated zones such as Heavy Max, Qatar Stone Tech, Lighting Tech, and Smart District, thus attracting thousands of stakeholders from various disciplines within the construction industry.

The fit out industry at a glance

• Qatar’s building surge ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup has sparked a boom in interior design spending across the Gulf, with the region’s fit-out market forecast to be worth $17bn in 2018. Between 2016 and 2017, the fit-out market grew by more than $2.2bn, according to Ventures. The commercial real estate ($1.1 billion), hotel ($2.1 billion), retail ($1.2 billion), hospital ($667 million) and education ($452 million) sectors have all increased interiors investment since 2016. The residential sector remained buoyant with an annual value of more than $3 billion, says the report.

• With a weekly spend of more than $500 million being put into infrastructure projects ahead of the FIFA World Cup in 2022, Qatar’s surging interiors market  is valued at almost $3bn-a-year and growing. In terms of spend-per-head of population, Qatar is seeing an annual sum of $78 being spent for every resident on commercial interiors and their fit-out. The country also leads the way in regards to investment in educational facilities and their interior fit-out, with a $280-per-head-spend.

• The interior design and build process is garnering momentum to become the leading project delivery system in the region’s fit-out industry where contracting and fit outs sector encompassing internal wood works, soft and hard furnishings, lightings, partitions, flooring, kitchens, bathroom fittings constitute approximately 10 to 20 percent of the average construction project value, performing much better than its European and Asian counterparts.

• According to DTZ, the supply of organized retail accommodation in Qatar has grown by more than 600,000 square meters since 2015. Doha’s organized retail market currently provides almost 1.4 million square meters of leasable accommodation in 21 purpose-built retail malls. Moreover, there are over 16,000 hotel keys and serviced apartments at various stages of planning and construction in Qatar. On the other hand, Valustrat reported the addition of 26,000 square meters of Gross Leasable Area (GLA) during Q3 2018, making office supply reach a total of 4 million square meters of leasable space. It also stated the residential supply reaching 288,735 units as of Q3 2018. These developments indicate an increasing demand for fit-out solutions across various sectors in Qatar.