The turnout to Dubailand Global Village fell this season, but organisers said they were pleased with the number of visitors to the multinational culture and entertainment festival, given the global economic situation.
Abdul bin Redha, the project director for the annual event in Dubai, said it received 4.4 million visitors over 102 days, compared with last year's 4.5 million visitors over 80 days.
"Our strategy this year was to enhance our entertainment offering and increase the quality of services and facilities," Mr bin Redha said. "While the global economic downturn could have posed a threat to this strategy, it is clear that the improvements to entertainment and services resonated with our visitors."
The 13th annual Global Village, a major tourist attraction for the emirate, ran from Nov 12 to Feb 21 and saw an average of 43,000 visitors daily. Mr bin Redha said the festival had 148,000 visitors on Feb 13 in a record attendance for a single day.
The event was launched in 1996 by Dubailand's master developer, Tatweer, to attract families to the emirate.
This year, cultural and entertainment attractions from more than 30 countries were spread across more than 37 hectares and employed 10,000 full and part-time workers, and 100 security staff.
Sunil Bhatia, the chief executive of the Indian pavilion, said crowds were thin in the first two months but increased when the Dubai Shopping Festival began on Jan 15. "Instead of going to the shopping mall, they came to the Global Village. We had good numbers once the DSF started."
Mr Bhatia said turnout was good considering the tightening credit markets, but numbers would have been better if admission had been kept at Dh5, instead of the Dh10 charged this year. He said tourists might also have been deterred by the rise in the cost of visit visas, at US$150 (Dh550) for 30 days, introduced by the Dubai Government last August.
In January, stallholders complained of sales down as much as 40 per cent. Mr Bhatia said stallholders in his pavilion experienced about a 10 per cent drop in sales from last year.
Dubailand is due to be finished in 2020 as part of Dubai's ambitious plan to bring 15 million tourists a year to the emirate by 2015, up from 7.7 million in 2007.
aligaya@thenational.ae
Attendance falls at Dubai's Global Village
Turnout at the annual event dropped, although it experienced its highest one day visitors' turnover.
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