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Anthony Woo

All the family get a look-in with Dubai's calendar, laden with shopping promotions, cultural shows and children's activities

You have to give credit to the folks at the Dubai Shopping Festival - when they put on a shopping and entertainment extravaganza, they pull out all the stops and go for it.

Introduced in 1996, the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) was initiated under the patronage of crown prince and defence minister of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the man behind many of the emirate's successful commercial initiatives.

This impressive shopping and entertainment mega event is a joint effort between the private and public sectors, and has taken off with immense success; multinationals such as Visa, Pepsi, MasterCard and Emirates Airlines are sponsors of the festival.

DSF runs annually for a month - from January 15 to February 15 - and was conceived as a purely retail event to revitalise the retail sector in the emirate, but was subsequently developed into a comprehensive tourism product.

Last year, overall festival spending reached 4.6 billion dirhams, which was overtopped by this year's figure of 5.12 billion dirhams, an 11.3 per cent increase. Some 2.92 million people visited.

'UAE has been able to establish itself at the forefront of the travel and tourism industry in the region. Within the last few years, its fine-tuned promotional machinery has become such a professional industry that UAE now has the enviable reputation of being top of the list of Arab tourist attractions,' says Hussain Ali Lootah, DSF executive chairman.

DSF was conceived as an umbrella for a multitude of events designed to entertain and encourage consumer spending, and was given the theme One World, One Family, One Festival.

This year's highlights were a night souk from 9pm to 3am; a desert camp; a series of fashion shows; the hugely popular Global Village, a melting pot of international handicrafts, culture and food; a 'Carpet Oasis' and 'heritage diving village', both of which showcased local culture and traditions.

Art and music connoisseurs were treated to live performances by talent from around the world, including the soul-stirring Feyrouz, known to all in the Arab world as a chanteuse without parallel, 80 jazz musicians, John McLaughlin, Gloria Gaynor and Ronan Keating. Children were treated to performances of Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. There were street bazaars, fun fairs, a circus and fireworks on the Creek.

Because DSF is a shopping event, there are also raffles galore. The Lexus Mega Raffle saw two of the luxury cars and 100,000 dirhams given away daily. There is also a weekly millionaire draw.

The Dubai City of Gold promotion offers a chance to win a kilo of gold each day to shoppers spending 500 dirhams or more at jewellery stores.

With DSF a proven success, organisers expanded their ambitions, and new festival was born, Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS), under the slogan 'Big Fun for Little Ones'.

Children in the Middle East often have great influence over choice of family activities, and the idea was to create an indoors summer event with diverse activities to attract more visitors who would spend money in the emirate.

Launched five years ago with the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed, Summer Surprises runs from June 19 to August 29. It was timed for the hottest months to boost the economy at the leanest time of year. Sheikh Mohammed has said that the primary objective of DSS is to make an extensive change to the economic activity in the emirate by achieving and improving the levels of retail activity in the shopping malls.

Different government departments are given the responsibility to organise one of the festival's weekly themes. This year there were Flower Surprises and Sweets Surprises, for example.

Each week activities relate to the theme, such as flower arrangement, a flower carnival or chocolate art workshop, and demonstrations of traditional Arab sweets preparation. Featured also are heritage and cultural exhibitions.

Like DSF, there are also mega raffles with lots of prizes. To attract visitors, hotels offer big discounts.

DSS 2002 pulled around 1.5 million visitors to Dubai, who spent 1.3 billion dirhams.

The DSS mascot, Modhesh (Arabic for 'amazing'), does his bit to entice kids. He   is a yellow accordion-like creature with blue and yellow hair, white gloves and shoes ... and a big smile.

He even has a place named after him. Modhesh Fun City has cartoon characters, games, live shows, arts and crafts to keep kids of all ages entertained and is located at the Airport Expo.

With low import duties and no taxation combining to offer great value and savings, Dubai has positioned itself effectively as a shoppers' haven. There are some 30 shopping malls and all the major brands are represented, often at prices lower than they are in their home countries.



Festival fever