Visitor rush brings little business to Global Village

Dubai: Record crowds visited the Global Village during the Eid holidays, but many vendors say the new year got off to an uncertain start.

According to organisers, close to 400,000 people visited the shopping extravaganza at the Global Village during the three-day Eid holiday.

"Customers are looking, but they don't buy anything and I haven't sold much," said Yousuf Ali, who sells ceramic wares in the Jordan section of DSF as he's done for the past six years. "We have so many customers but no buyers."

Global Village, which hosts the 45 days of DSF, opened a week before the festival and will end a week after, on February 9.

There are about 39 national pavilions hosting roughly 2,000 stalls, 44 restaurants and 100 kiosks. Global Village is open from 4pm to midnight on weekdays, and till 1am on weekends. Entrance fees were raised from Dh3 per person last year to Dh5 this year, raising speculation that the move may hit footfall.

Ebrahim Abdul Rahim, director of Global Village, said the rise in gate fees has not had a measurable effect. He acknowledged attendance was slow in the first few days, but said numbers picked up during the Eid holidays, and predicted three million visitors this year at DSF, up from 2.2 million last year.

However, in an online poll, Gulf News readers responded overwhelmingly to the new entrance fee hike, with a majority saying the event should be free.

In a survey conducted yesterday, 3,769 readers weighed in. Sixty per cent said the event should be free, 20 per cent said the fees were high, 17 per cent said they were good value, and three per cent said they were low. Rahim said the fee hike was due to the addition of night entertainment.

Vendors have a month to sell wares, after paying between roughly Dh8,000 to Dh30,000 as stall rent. Higher fees are levied in zones with high occupant demand and greater footfall.

"Eid was good. After, no good," said Mohammad Nazerian, a carpet seller in the Iranian section. Revenues were 20 per cent higher at the same point last year, and he said he was unsure whether he would be back next year.

"If the rest is good, we'll come," he said. "If it's no good, we won't come."

We have a stall in Global Village and business is very low. I remember that two years ago we had five people in the stall and were not able to handle customers due to the rush. But last year and this year there is one person in the stall and he is sitting idle.
Ajaz
Dubai,UAE

It should have an entrance fee but it should have more cultural programmes and monuments.
Zulfi Shaikh
Mumbai,India