A crowd of straw hats bobbing along...long queues outside the cash dispensing machine...and all that glitters is valuable as far as the eye can see. This is just one impression that greets the visitor at the Dubai Gold Souq.

The first week of the Dubai Shopping Festival has seen gold sales catapult. Businessmen trading in the noble metal are quite happy with the increased number of buyers gracing their shop floors.
They attribute the rise to a number of factors including the long stretch of Eid Al Adha holidays, higher oil and low gold prices.

C.P. Renjith, general manager of marketing at Alukkas Jewellery, said that their seven outlets had recorded a 30 per cent increase in sales from the previous year for the same period.
He said: "The Dubai Shopping Festival 2001 started off this year with a weekend, which was followed closely by Eid.

"This has been very good for business, especially when we compare it to the sales in the first week of the festival last year, including the Eid holidays. We have recorded a 30 to 35 per cent increase and expect this trend to continue until Friday.

"We have received a lot of shoppers from the UAE and Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The increased sales are due to the holidays, also the gold price is lower than last year. It is below Dh30 per gram.

"There also appears to be greater liquidity in the market due to the international rise in oil prices and stronger economies so people have more disposable income at hand."

He predicts the market will lull after the weekend until March 15, especially as schools have exams. So families and particularly people from the sub-continent, who buy a lot of gold, will not venture out for shopping until the exams are over.

Renjith said: "Then the market will pick up again. Around this period we will also see a lot more tourists, especially from European countries." But this rise seems to be restricted to the 22 carat gold market. The 18 and lower carat jewellery still haven't caught on.

Glennen D'Souza, Sales Coordinator at Shattaf Jewellers, said: "The 22 carat market is doing well, but the buyers for 18 carat is lower. "We expect the demand to increase as more Western visitors come in, especially from Europe. They tend to buy more 18 carat jewellery. The market should pick up more after Saturday."

Virendra Soni, Director of National Jewellery, agrees to this market analysis. He said: "During the Eid Al Adha holidays we mostly had Asian and GCC Nationals coming in to shop. Now more Western tourists will come in.

"This year we have experienced a good increase in sales for the first quarter of this month, I would personally bill it around 25 per cent."

While the businessmen count their dirhams and look forward to more tourists coming into the emirate, the visitors who are already in the country seem to be having an interesting time.

Fred Lerner from Ontario, Canada, transiting via Dubai while on a cruise to South Africa, said that he was enjoying his short stay. "I'm overwhelmed by it, especially all the gold in the Dubai Souk," he said. His wife, Margaret, said that bargaining was proving to be quite an obstacle for her at the souq. "I'm not used to it at all," she said.

Louise and Geoffrey Bates from London are visiting Dubai after 12 years and are witnessing the shopping festival for the first time. Geoffrey said: "It's incredible how the city has changed. The infrastructure, highrise buildings, festivals and everything else, the development is just amazing.

"Even the Gold Souq, the structure is the same but everything else has undergone a sea change. It's great being back."