Few – if any – cities in the world are more closely associated with the shopping mall than Dubai.
From long-established favourites such as Mazaya Shopping Centre in Al Wasl and Mercato Mall in Jumeirah, through to mega-malls like Mall of the Emirates, Ibn Battuta Mall, and of course the flagship Dubai Mall, the city is a shopaholic’s paradise.
And there is more to come. According to a recent paper in the journal Sustainability, Dubai has 10 malls under construction to add to the 65 that already exist.
“Shopping malls have emerged as de facto community centres and public squares where Dubai residents can congregate, socialise, and participate in various events,” the researchers wrote.
In the UAE, shopping mall culture began in the early 1980s, with the opening of the Al Ghurair Centre, and accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s.
The rise of the mega mall
The “City Centre” outlets from Majid Al Futtaim were among the standard bearers and the company took things up a gear with the Mall of the Emirates, which opened in 2005 beside Sheikh Zayed Road with well over 600 shops and the Ski Dubai venue.
Ibn Battuta Mall, launched further up Sheikh Zayed Road the same year courtesy of the developer Nakheel.
Another mega-mall, Dubai Mall, developed by Emaar and located beside the Burj Khalifa, opened in 2008 and attracts tens of millions of visitors each year to its more than 1,200 retail units.
“The retail experience … overall in the UAE, particularly in Dubai, is at the pinnacle of what you would find,” David Macadam, chief executive of the Middle East Council of Shopping Centres and Retailers, said.
“Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates … it’s the best retail experience that you can find anywhere. They keep getting the details correct to make the shopper come back for more.”
As an example, he cited the “absolutely exquisite” bathroom facilities, comparable to those in a five-star hotel.
Recent years have seen the continued opening of malls in the country, especially of malls within new communities, such as on the islands around Abu Dhabi.
The UAE’s embrace of all that is luxurious and shiny in its malls appears not to have been mirrored in the US, according to Prof Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia Business School in New York.
US market takes online hit
The US essentially invented the shopping mall in the 1950s, and growth there has been about increased choice rather than glitz.
“The newer malls had more space,” Prof Cohen said. “They were bigger, had more parking facilities, typically tiered so the customer didn’t have to walk as far to the mall.
“They had more amenities, but not to the extent of places like Dubai, [where] it’s new and glitzy, it’s a luxury and it presents itself as a luxury hotel.”
In the US, there have been many reports of the struggles faced by shopping malls, hit by oversupply and, in recent times, the growth of online retail. The number of malls in the US is said to have fallen from 2,500 in the 1980s to around 700 now, with further decline likely.
“When you overbuild relative to available demand for customers, you face the spectre of a decline in productivity, which is what has [affected] hundreds and hundreds of US malls,” Prof Cohen said.
Could malls in the UAE, which also face the risk of business moving to the web, be set for the type of contraction seen in North America?
Experts back UAE malls to thrive
There are reasons to think that they could be more resilient, not least because malls in the Gulf are much more than places to shop.
“They are large indoor spaces where people can go during the summer months when the heat is too strong to even take a stroll outside,” Dr Laure Assaf, an assistant professor at New York University Abu Dhabi who researches mall culture, particularly among young people, said.
“This environmental factor is important in explaining the continuing success of malls in Gulf countries in general and in the UAE in particular.
“Shopping malls in the Gulf … can also be seen as public spaces where people go not only for shopping but for experiences like taking a stroll, meeting friends, going on a family outing.”
Another factor, Dr Assaf said, is that shopping malls are “a very integral part of the branding” of cities in the UAE.
“They’ve become very identified with the cities, very integrated to the form of urbanity that is being developed in the Gulf, and they’re also very central to the project of economic diversification,” she said.
“The sectors that governments have turned to are real estate, finance and tourism, and malls concentrate all of this urban development. They are large real estate properties that drive tourism.”
Among the malls set to open in future, Dubai Square, an Emaar development, will take the UAE mall experience to another level with an enormous roof and wide internal avenues.
Described as a 2.6 million square metre “indoor city”, it will face Dubai Creek Tower and will have 10,000 residential units, more than 1,500 hotel rooms and a similar amount of retail space to Dubai Mall.
In an echo of ski slope at Mall of the Emirates, Dubai Square will have an “Ice Adventure” centre alongside an art district and what is said to be the largest Chinatown in the Middle East.
Other parts of the Mena region beyond the Gulf are seeing the inauguration of new mega-malls, such as Egypt, where Mall of Egypt, which is owned and managed by Majid Al Futtaim, opened six years ago.
In its latest half-yearly results, released in August, the properties division of Majid Al Futtaim announced a 12 per cent increase in shopping malls footfall, with Mall of the Emirates recording its highest-ever figures for the first half of the year, well over 15 years after the venue opened.
“Tenant sales grew seven per cent, with UAE-based malls making the largest contribution,” the company said in a statement.
So, with more people visiting existing malls and with additional malls planned, the UAE’s love affair with the shopping mall, far from waning, appears to be growing ever stronger.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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THE DRAFT
The final phase of player recruitment for the T10 League has taken place, with UAE and Indian players being drafted to each of the eight teams.
Bengal Tigers
UAE players: Chirag Suri, Mohammed Usman
Indian: Zaheer Khan
Karachians
UAE players: Ahmed Raza, Ghulam Shabber
Indian: Pravin Tambe
Kerala Kings
UAE players: Mohammed Naveed, Abdul Shakoor
Indian: RS Sodhi
Maratha Arabians
UAE players: Zahoor Khan, Amir Hayat
Indian: S Badrinath
Northern Warriors
UAE players: Imran Haider, Rahul Bhatia
Indian: Amitoze Singh
Pakhtoons
UAE players: Hafiz Kaleem, Sheer Walli
Indian: RP Singh
Punjabi Legends
UAE players: Shaiman Anwar, Sandy Singh
Indian: Praveen Kumar
Rajputs
UAE players: Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed
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PRESIDENTS CUP
Draw for Presidents Cup fourball matches on Thursday (Internationals first mention). All times UAE:
02.32am (Thursday): Marc Leishman/Joaquin Niemann v Tiger Woods/Justin Thomas
02.47am (Thursday): Adam Hadwin/Im Sung-jae v Xander Schauffele/Patrick Cantlay
03.02am (Thursday): Adam Scott/An Byeong-hun v Bryson DeChambeau/Tony Finau
03.17am (Thursday): Hideki Matsuyama/CT Pan v Webb Simpson/Patrick Reed
03.32am (Thursday): Abraham Ancer/Louis Oosthuizen v Dustin Johnson/Gary Woodland
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The biog
Mission to Seafarers is one of the largest port-based welfare operators in the world.
It provided services to around 200 ports across 50 countries.
They also provide port chaplains to help them deliver professional welfare services.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
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Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
