The Middle East’s demand for the retail-entertainment mix knows no bounds, writes David Snook.
IMAGINE a shopping mall of nearly 5,000,000sq.ft and with 2,500 stores. Imagine further, if you can, its family entertainment centre covering 400,000sq.ft.
Yes, it is the largest in the world – or maybe not, but it is certainly up there with the largest; and imagine where it is… In fact, it’s not in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha, where all the action seems to be in FECs these days. It is in Shiraz, Iran.
If it demonstrates anything, it is that everywhere in the Middle East is a market and retail knows no bounds. The international trade sanctions against Iran didn’t stop the Persian Gulf Complex, nor did it stop Iran Land inside it. The need to shop – and with it the need to be entertained – seems to be paramount.
Nothing surprises any more in the Middle East. This year’s tour of the region threw up statistics that were yet more tributes to limitless imagination, but they no longer make you catch your breath. It has all become the norm in a region which without question now leads the world in the retail-entertainment marriage.
Talking with the suppliers in the epicentre of activity, which unquestionably remains Dubai, and they will point out that almost anywhere is still a market, politics and warfare notwithstanding. “We are still sending spares into Syria and machines into new FECs in the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” said Nabil Kassim, whose Warehouse of Games is one of the notable suppliers.
The gloomy headlines that debate the problems of the region from the Western dailies are acknowledged across the Middle East, but are not seen as an impassable barrier. Iran and the US-led trade embargo is a typical example. The Persian Gulf Complex’s Iran Land has a 300,000sq.ft games room with hundreds of the latest machines. They got into the country somehow. It is true that not all of the retail elements are open yet, but the endeavour and the intent are certainly there.
The quality is also there. At the Middle East and North Africa Shopping Centre and Retailer Awards last October, the Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim Group won no fewer than six top awards for its malls. Its entertainment division is a hotbed of new ideas and projects and is looking closely at central Africa as a territory into which it can spread its wings.
Read the full article in the March issue of InterGame
