Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Shopping Festival
Running for 63 days, the Hong Kong Shopping Festival (HKSF) this year takes place from June 30 to August 31 when most stores offer discounts and promotions and late night shopping hours are extended. The malls and streets of Hong Kong are decorated and themed during this period and events running alongside include fireworks displays and themed activities organised by trade associations and food districts. These include the Diamond Exhibition, the Luxury Timepiece Exhibition, Beauty & Make-up Carnival and the Canton Road Food Festival. The HKSF web site (
www.discoverhongkong.com
) will feature shopping festival news, special shopping offers and recommendations on shopping attractions and locations.
More than 30 Hong Kong hotels are creating three-day/two-night packages during the HKSF period with special privileges such as spa and shopping discounts, while nine DMCs will run HKSF tours. Details of both will be posted on the HKSF site.
Hong Kong’s main shopping districts include the established Pacific Place in Admiralty; the newer International Finance Centre (IFC) Mall, with an upscale offering of international and local designers. Harvey Nichols’ arrival in Hong Kong has added another great shopping destination while Lane Crawford, the Selfridges of Hong Kong is located in Times Square. Nearby is Island Beverley in Causeway Bay – home to the largest collection of Hong Kong’s up-and-coming designers.
UK
Bicester Village
Bicester Village offers your clients the most exclusive outlet shopping in Britain. Located just one-hour from London, the countryside retail village is one of the leading tourist attractions in Oxfordshire and nearby attractions include Oxford, Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle and Stratford-Upon-Avon. Open seven days a week, Bicester offers more than 95 boutiques featuring designer clothing for men and women at prices between 30-80% of the original retail price. The reason? They are not seconds but merely last year’s stock. Brands include Aquascutum, Bally, Burberry, Clarks, Hugo Boss, Max Mara, Mulberry, Paul Smith, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Tod’s and Versace.
Operator, Value Retail, works with London hotels to arrange day trips to the village, with transport ranging from private chauffeur-driven car to coach and rail. Passengers travelling by rail are greeted by a shuttle bus to the village.
Luxury hotels nearby include Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons run by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc.
Value Retail regularly forges partnerships with tour operators and travel agents to create shopping packages and offers. E-mail
[email protected]
.
Visit
www.ChicOutletShopping.com
for more information on Bicester Village and other Value Retail outlets in the UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Shopping guide
VisitBritain launched a Shop Britain shopping guide that will be distributed to travel agents featuring London’s well-known shopping streets and districts as well as some of the UK’s shopping hotspots including Birmingham’s new Bullring shopping mall and Manchester’s Millennium Quarter. Information on family activities and days out, food outlets, evening entertainment and hot shopping tips are included. Visit
www.visitlondon.com
; and
www.visitbritain.com
.
Packages
The Langham Hotel offers a ‘Shopaholics at the Langham’ package, including one night’s accommodation, a Regent Street Privilege Card offering a 10% discount at 19 shops and 11 F&B outlets; a Where to Wear London shopping guide and a post-shopping foot massage. Prices start from $597.
Emirates Holidays’ three-night packages to London including return business class airfare and accommodation in the Jumeirah Lowndes start from AED 14,013 ($3815).
Tempo Holidays recommends the Radisson Edwardian Sussex at Marble Arch and the Radisson Edwardian Berkshire on Oxford Street from $187.
Europe
Italy
Italy is the indisputable fashion capital of the world and from September 2, Etihad Airways will start non-stop flights between Abu Dhabi and Milan, arriving just in time for Milan Fashion Week.
As part of the promotional campaign leading up to the launch of the new service, Etihad is offering competitively priced fares with return coral zone flights starting from AED 1330 ($362), pearl zone from AED 7330 ($1996), and diamond zone from AED 9330 ($2540).
Etihad passengers can take 40kg of checked baggage when travelling in diamond, 30kg in pearl, but only 20kg in coral zone. Diamond and pearl zone passengers can carry two pieces of hand baggage with a combined weight of up to 12 kg and Etihad Guest gold and silver members are entitled to an additional 15kg and 10kg respectively.
Emirates Airline also flies to Milan and Rome daily, but from July 1 will also operate five times weekly to Venice. This service will become daily from September.
Germany
Germany is not normally considered a shopping hotspot, but Marco Heinrich, destination development manager, Europe and the Americas for Emirates Holidays notes that Hamburg and Dusseldorf are worth a visit.
In Dusseldorf, a visit to Königsallee (nicknamed “Kö” by the locals) is a must. This boulevard is noted for its specialty shops spanning antiques, chocolates and art. The shopping streets between the colonnades and Neuer Wall street are lined with luxurious arcades, while the main shopping areas such as Mönckebergstrasse cater to even the most discerning tastes. Neuer Wall drips with upmarket brands and the Hanseatic shopping arcade offers boutiques and specialist stores with products ranging from interior design to lingerie. Hamburg also boasts 12 shopping malls.
Packages:
• Etihad Airways’ three-night packages to Milan are priced from AED 2440 ($610) per person.
• Tempo Holidays offers a ‘Taste of Florence’ Gold Package with an optional outlet shopping tour. The basic package price including three nights’ accommodation and sightseeing tours of Florence Siena and San Gimignano starts from $1727 per person. The six-hour outlet tour costs from $45.
• Emirates Holidays offers top-end packages to several European shopping cities that include business class flights from Dubai and five-star accommodation. Prices for three-night packages to Rome start from AED 11,123 ($3029) per person; to Venice from AED 11,687 ($3182) per person; and to Hamburg and Dusseldorf AED 14,154 ($3854) per person.
Australia
Gold Coast
Surfers Paradise is a leading retail precinct where shops open until 9pm every night. Tree-lined boulevards shade international names like Cartier, Prada, Gucci, Louis Vitton, Fendi, Bally Hermes, Paris and Salvatore Ferragamo. Duty free outlets are also abundant and travellers can claim back 10% GST when leaving the country.
Broadbeach is home to Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, which is connected by monorail to Conrad Jupiters casino, while Main Beach is famous for its one-off, trendy local boutiques and the Marina Mirage featuring international and top Australian designer label clothing complemented by a string of award-winning restaurants all overlooking the beautiful Broadwater.
Harbour Town is Australia’s first purpose-built brand direct/factory outlet shopping centre with 120 stores featuring top brands such as Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Esprit, DKNY and Calvin Klein at prices 60% below the retail cost. The mall has recently been extended to include a new Tourism Lounge where visitors are welcome to relax, freshen up, enjoy refreshments, safely store purchases and access services including information, tour bookings, Internet and even an international prayer room.
Sydney
For mall shopping recommend Westfield Bondi Junction (WBJ) featuring Australian designer fashion brands and top-end department store David Jones. City centre shopping is found around Pitt Street and George Street with smaller niche malls including QVB and The Strand. For boutiques galore suggest Oxford Street, dubbed ‘The Style Mile’ by the locals, while weekend shopping at The Rocks market should satisfy shoppers’ hunger for local arts and crafts and souvenirs.
Packages:
Etihad Holidays offers three-night packages to Sydney from AED 2990 ($814) per person. An upgrade to Pearl Zone is priced AED 4515 ($1229) per person one way.
Dubai
Ibn Battuta Hotel Dubai
When it opens in December next year, the Ibn Battuta Hotel Dubai, operated by Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts will capitalise on the increasing popularity of shopping and dining holidays and breaks, says the company’s general manager & regional manager, Dubai, Thomas Tapken.
The 396-room hotel, adjoined to the themed Ibn Battuta Mall, will be positioned as the ideal location to meet, dine and shop and will be marketed as such to both regional and overseas markets. Services will include a trained concierge to recommend, accompany or even shop for the guest should they require; a butler service, shopping assistants, special offers for guests at selected shops, storage solutions for large shopping packages, courier services and a bag pick-up service.
BurJuman Rotana Suites
BurJuman Rotana Suites has been designed to attract “business and leisure travellers who want luxurious, centrally-located accommodation and a stylish way of shopping”, according to Mrad El Khoury, the property’s GM. The hotel comprises 148 fully serviced upscale one-bedroom suites, duplex townhouses and a penthouse, all within air-conditioned walking distance of the BurJuman shopping mall. Recreation facilities include two outdoor swimming pools and a health club. Plans to build a spa, which will appeal to the shopping fraternity, are on the cards says El Khoury.
World’s largest shopping zone
Dubai Holding was last month given the green light to start work on the world’s largest shopping zone as the centre piece of the Bawadi development, part of the US $63.4 billion Dubailand project.
When completed in 2016, Bawadi’s $27.25 billion hospitality and leisure zone will boast 3.6 million m² of retail space comprising a vast network of shopping malls, boutique arcades, streets lined with outlets and an underground retail complex.
This combined with Dubailand’s theme parks, museums and cultural attractions is expected to attract some 15 million visitors annually by the middle of the next decade.
In total, the new shopping area’s gross leaseable area will be four times bigger than the yet to be completed Dubai Mall and 17 times the size of the Mall of the Emirates, which currently holds the title of being the biggest retail complex in the whole emirate.
Singapore
Orchard Road upgrade
In a bid to enhance the street-level experience of the famous Orchard Road, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has committed S$40 million (US $26.4 million) to make public infrastructure enhancements by the end of 2008. These will include upgrading pedestrian walkways and installing new state-of-the-art experiential lighting in a bid to attract 17 million visitors and S$30 billion ($19.8 billion) in tourism receipts by 2015.
Recommended hotels on or near Orchard Road: Four Seasons Hotel, Goodwood Park Hotel, Grand Hyatt Singapore, Hilton International, Meritus Mandarin Singapore, Orchard Hotel, Royal Plaza on Scotts, Shangri-La Hotel, Sheraton Towers, Singapore Marriott Hotel and The Regent.
Visit:
www.visitsingapore.com
.
Singapore shopping hotspots
Marina Bay features mega malls, designer boutiques and everything in between. For more high-end shopping, suggest the specialty stores in Millenia Walk, home to Asia’s largest watch gallery, Cortina Watch Espace Boutique, or a visit to Raffles Hotel Arcade where the finest international designer brands are showcased.
VivoCity, which opened recently, is currently the centerpiece of the HarbourFront Precinct, an area that spans 24 hectares and encompasses offices at the HarbourFront Office Park, retail and cruise amenities at the HarbourFront Centre, as well as a mega multi-entertainment hub at St James Power Station. One of the unique features of VivoCity, according to the STB, is the interesting mix of retailers featuring new-to-market brands and concepts such as the 3-in-1 destination shopping megastore, VivoMart, incorporating the biggest Giant Hypermarket in Singapore.
Future malls
When the Marina Bay Sands opens in 2009 it will add 117,100m² to Singapore’s retail space. The Marina Bay Shoppes will introduce many new retail brands not currently in Singapore.
Orchard Turn is a retail-cum-luxury residential project situated at the junction of Orchard Road and Paterson Road, all of which will be completed by 2009. Orchard Turn will be a retail mall with more than 450 shops and restaurants.
Somerset Central will be developed to deliver 28,000m² of quality retail space, located adjacent to the Somerset MRT station, with a 100-metre street frontage onto Orchard Road and a 70-metre exposure to Somerset Road.
Orchard Central, which is slated to open in late 2008, will be Singapore’s tallest mall with 10 floors and two basements, built along the lines of Tokyo’s famous Ginza shopping district.
The Great Singapore Sale
In its 14th year, the Great Singapore Sale (May 25 to July 22) has become one of Singapore’s signature events, drawing worldwide visitors, including a significant number from the Middle East. The sale promises discounts of up to 70% and a range of special promotions and competitions. Designer labels will be celebrating their end-of-season sale from the end of June into July, with discounts of up to 50%. Middle East travellers can also benefit from The Great Singapore Sale Tourist Privilege Card for special discounts and promotions on shopping, sightseeing, dining and entertainment. Visit
www.greatsingaporesale.com.sg
.
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