79% say they will not shop at Dubai Mall

More than three-quarters of Arabian Business readers are planning to stay away from the new Dubai Mall, according to the results of an online poll.

A total of 79 percent of respondents said they would not be visiting the huge new shopping complex which opened on November 4.

And their views seem to support comments by retail analysts who question whether Dubai Mall will be able to hit their target of attracting 30 million shoppers during the first year of opening.

Industry observers say that the growth in consumer spending may not be able to keep up with the amount of retail space coming online in Dubai Mall.

“The purchasing power of many sections of the population has at best been stagnant, but often declined, because of higher rental costs,” Eckart Woertz, economist at Gulf Research Centre, told Arabian Business last week.

And the results of our poll suggest many people agree. Of the 79 percent of respondents who said they would not be visiting, 51 percent said it was because they could not afford to shop there.

They called into question the timing of launching such a project when many people were struggling to cope with the impact of the global credit crunch.

Another 28 percent of respondents said they would be would not visit the new mall until more retailers came online - for day one of operations, approximately 600 of the more than 1,200 retail spaces were open for business.

At the end of 2007, there were 1.5 million square metres of gross leasable area (GLA) in Dubai malls. This will double to 3 million square metres by the end of 2010.

But Dubai Mall bosses are confident of its success. Speaking at the opening, general manager Yousif Al-Ali said: “The growth in GDP will translate into more purchasing power in the region, even the tourism has not been affected – we are seeing a huge number of tourists coming to the region.

“We are satisfied that nothing will be affected in Dubai Mall. Dubai Mall will be the number one mall in the region in terms of sales.”

And 14 percent of respondents in our poll agreed with him, They said the shopping centre looked fantastic and they believed it would break all retail sales records in Dubai.

A further seven percent said they thought the wide range of luxury brands on offer at the mall would ensure high levels of spending.

The mall, one of the biggest in the world at 12.1 million square feet, will feature more than 1,200 stores and over 160 food and beverage outlets once complete.

Of the 1,200 retailers, more than 165 are opening in Dubai or the Middle East region for the very first time.

The mall is being built by Emaar Malls Group and is part of the $20 billion Downtown Burj Dubai, Emaar Properties’ 500-acre flagship project. At its centre is the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building.

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