Dubai: Shopping Festival (DSF), the region's largest retail, tourism and entertainment event started on February 15, 1996, as a retail event intended to revitalise retail trade in Dubai.
It was launched under the directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to position Dubai as a leading tourist destination and to stimulate the economic and tourism sectors in the city.
The concept was the first of its kind in the region, and proved to be highly successful, mainly due to the close cooperation between the government and the private sectors.
An entirely new concept, it succeeded brilliantly in showcasing what co-operation between private sector and public sector could do to create a mind-boggling achievement.
DSF sees participation of over 6,000 retail outlets, that offer everything imaginable, from gold, perfume, haute couture, cars, electronics, handicrafts to textiles. Over the years, the festival has matured into a major retail-cum-entertainment extravaganza.
Highlights of the festival include shops offering deep discounts on their merchandise, daily car raffles, fireworks, carnivals and, of course, the novel idea of the Global Village.
The festival is now segregated into many major attractions, all with one purpose: to have as many ways of entertaining the guests to the city, and catering to each and every individual visitor from abroad.
The success of DSF can be gauged from the visitor and visitor spending figures over the past editions.
In the inaugural edition of DSF in 1996, 1.6 million visitors spent about Dh2.15 billion in 43 days. In 2009, the visitor number had touched 3.35 million and the spending figure had reached a massive Dh9.8 billion.
Longest-running event
DSF contributed Dh15.1 billion to Dubai's economy from retail, travel and hospitality spend last year, including Dh5.9 billion spent by regional and international visitors, and Dh6.6 billion spent by residents of other emirates. Throughout the month-long festival in 2011, just under 4 million people participated in DSF-related activities and events.
A total of 884,660 regional and international visitors came to Dubai during the DSF while 3.1 million UAE residents also participated.
It is the region's largest and longest-running shopping and entertainment extravaganza. DSF has had around 35 million visitors since 1996, who have spent close to Dh74 billion in shopping malls, airlines, hotels and entertainment outlets.
The theme is ‘One World. One Family. One Festival'.
