The CEO of the newly renamed Dubai Festivals and Retail Sector Promotions Establishment (DFRSPE), Laila Mohammad Suhail is strategising to ensure that retail and tourism work hand in hand. “I would not like to call it a restructuring, but a new approach by the government to give more focus to the development of festivals and the retail sector. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has recognised the significant contribution that our entity has made towards Dubai’s economy through the creation of trendsetting festivals over the past 18 years,” she tells GN Focus.
Last month, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the renaming of Dubai Events and Promotions Establishment as Dubai Festivals and Retail Sector Promotions Establishment (DFRSPE). The new entity is an agency of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). The law gives DFRSPE the mandate to collaborate with both the private and public sector to create and maintain festivals in the city and develop and promote the retail sector, attracting more visitors and further increasing the sectors’ contribution to the emirate’s GDP.
“The organisation is expanding. When we launched we were just doing Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF). The city today needs much more than that,” says Suhail.
Ensconced comfortably in her office with a shiny, crystal encrusted statue of Modhesh in the background, she reminiscences about the first shopping festival Dubai organised. “The growth of the retail sector is evident in the rapid development of the malls. When DSF, our first major festival, was launched in 1996 there were only five to six major malls compared to about 70 of them now,” she says.
Summer is Dubai
The summer festival, which originally started as Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS) 16 years ago, is now followed by Ramadan in Dubai and Eid in Dubai, under the tagline of Summer Is Dubai.
“This year our summer campaign is bigger than ever before. From June 7 to September 7, a period of three months, Dubai will be hosting Summer Is Dubai, which embraces under one banner all the festivities, occasions, cultural experiences and celebrations of Dubai’s annual summer season such as Dubai Summer Surprises, Ramadan in Dubai, Modhesh World and Eid in Dubai,” says Suhail.
“We have a three-month-long summer during which we expect to do extremely well in terms of visitor numbers,” she adds.
In 2011, four million people participated in events and activities related to DSS. The contribution to Dubai’s economy from retail, travel and hospitality spend during the five-week summer festival was Dh8.8 billion.
Today, Dubai is well on its way to build on its heritage as a trading destination and shopping is an integral part of Dubai Tourism’s Vision 2020. “It is in line with Shaikh Mohammad’s recent approval of Dubai Tourism’s Vision 2020, which includes achieving the target of 20 million visitors per year by 2020. Retail has been a major driver of the year-on-year growth in visitor numbers to Dubai and is of crucial importance to the emirate’s GDP,” Suhail says.
With Summer Is Dubai starting less than a month after the renaming, Suhail’s office is a flurry of activities. Everything from decorations to activities and strategic moves is being examined carefully.
The next level
“Especially with DSF and DSS running for the past 18 and 16 years respectively, we have to reinvent many aspects. We need to take the festivals to the next level. I believe that every single person living in Dubai, whether it is residents of Dubai, the private sector or the media, has been associated with DSF. They all have ownership of the brand. They have been engaged with it. The expectations are very high for a festival reaching its peak in the 19th or the 20th year,” says Suhail.
For various festivals that make up Summer Is Dubai, starting from the airport, Dubai’s decorations change during the three-month period. “Theoretically they are all festivals. We have given them flavours by defining the unique selling proposition of each brand,” she says.
New initiatives include working closely with a retail calendar being developed in association with retailers. Suhail says, “As part of our new mandate we would be looking after the retail calendar, which will coincide with all events happening in Dubai. Retailers have their own calendar depending on spring-summer or autumn-winter and we will make sure that the festivals coincide with that. The calendar will support us in planning our festivals. Again, it demonstrates that shopping and retail is integrated.”
Last year during Eid Al Adha shoppers in Dubai got a taste of being able to shop all night. Asked whether they can expect it during summer as well, Suhail says, “As a government we have been working closely with the retailers and we want to make sure that the retailers get the best out of it. We have kept the option open for them. If the retailers and malls want to do it we will definitely support that.”
