Dubai: Dubai’s malls have been quick on the draw by bringing forward the launch date of their summer-long campaign by a good two weeks. The five-month campaign will see participating malls shell out up to Dh5.5 million through vouchers, car raffles and travel packages for the lucky shoppers.

Another incentive that will play particularly well with the resident shopper will see a special ‘Back To School’ campaign that will award 10 children tuition fees of up to Dh50,000.

For the malls, it will be a crucial part of their combined — and individual — gameplan to rekindle shopper activity after a lacklustre showing in the first five months of the year. Bringing forward the promotional period — and gilding it with some attractive raffle-driven offers — may just provide that missing spark.

“This year, we chose to advance our promotion calendar by two weeks not only to coincide with the [start of] Ramadan and Eid dates but to give shoppers a longer time period to participate and win,” said Majid Al Ghurair, Chairman of Dubai Shopping Malls Group. “The Group has carefully sought to highlight segments such as ‘Back to School’ and ‘His and Hers Cars’ in keeping with the tradition of family fun.

“Dubai Shopping Malls Group has factored in the increase in demand during these months and strategically chosen to run its promotion over a longer period until October.”

This campaign will feature 25 participating malls, essentially made up of the community and neighbourhood destinations and some large-format properties.

“Mega malls such as MAF Group and Emaar though a strategic partnership with Dubai Festival and Retail Establishment [DFRE] run their own campaigns for their shoppers,” said Al Ghurair. “The objective of DSMG however is to provide city-wide participation with a wider majority of malls across the city, thereby providing a larger opportunity for consumer participation.”

On whether the longer promotional run won’t add up to higher costs for the individual malls, Al Ghurair said: “Every year the group’s promotions are strongly supported by DFRE. This support assists the group and all the individual malls to balance their spend.

“Additionally, while our roster of Summer Campaign 2015 activities are spread across a longer period this year, they are divided into sections that include Eid Al Fitr, Dubai Summer Sale (DSS), Eid Al Adha and Back to School campaigns which are already calendar event dates for all of the malls to hold special promotions.”