TRSA Advances Industry Connections with Interactive Event in Dubai

TRSA held its Dubai Summit on Oct. 28-29 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to demonstrate to operators and suppliers from across the region how TRSA can benefit their operations. The program is designed to position TRSA as the global association for commercial and central laundry operations.

The gathering of nearly 50 attendees reflected TRSA’s ability to:

• Foster interaction within the industry in developing best-management practices
• Speak as the industry’s voice to the linen, uniform and facility services marketplace

The latter capability was evident as participants, most from the UAE and some from Saudi Arabia, consistently mentioned the need for greater industry unity in the region. They view this as key to improving operators’ communication of their services’ value to laundry customers. TRSA resources previously developed for this purpose have included:

• Consumer (industry customers’ clients) research reflecting the importance of these services to their decision to patronize industry customers
• Videos for healthcare professionals on how they can extend linen life through better handling of soiled and clean linen

The agenda enabled attendees to speak directly with customers about this value, as two local hospitality executives and one from the healthcare sector attended to share their perspectives (photo in this article) on the matter.

Discussions covered emerging technologies in wash-aisle operations and resource conservation. A closing panel of executives representing the industry operator and supplier sectors pointed to opportunities such as expanding rental service relative to limited-margin processing of customer-owned goods (COG). This could generate additional margin that would be used to upgrade facilities and equipment.

TRSA President & CEO Joseph Ricci praised the group for their interactivity during the Oct. 28-29 event, which began with a welcome reception attended by a Dubai Economy and Tourism department official. Mixing with the participants, he focused on networking and identifying their challenges to growth.

Ricci thanked the 12 locally based suppliers to the industry who supported the event as part of their 2025-’26 commitment to engage operators in TRSA. Suppliers’ connections with local operators was key to assembling the event’s audience. Looking forward, collaboration between suppliers and operators was viewed as integral to efforts to build the industry’s value proposition, as both can testify to the sustainability and economic benefits of customers’ use of linen and uniform service.

The event’s education session formats were derived from concepts deployed in agendas of TRSA North American events. All Dubai sessions hinged on “user-generated” content. This approach resembles the CEO roundtable discussions at face-to-face TRSA events and the virtual Network Connections roundtables for various managerial functions in linen, uniform and facility services operations.

This program was aimed at operators with one or more laundries serving hospitality, healthcare or other business locations, whose operation produces at least 15 tonnes (33,069 lbs.) of laundry each day.