Shopping in Dubai:
Dubai Shopping Malls
Dubai has long since been recognised as a shoppers’ paradise and with over 50 shopping malls to its name, it would be hard for even the least seasoned shopper to dispute this. Naturally enough, it is not within the scope of this page to go into the fine detail of them all but you can rest assured that whether you need a packet of safety pins or a Maybach car, there’s a good chance you’ll find them easily at one of the malls.
Whichever Dubai shopping mall you visit, most of them have some common characteristics:
Large retailing square footage able to host a number of shops (usually numbering in the hundreds) that offer a combination of traditional fare and modern European and American branded goods.
The mall’s large size will mean that it’s invariably distributed over multiple levels, with each level also offering its own selection of food courts and coffee shops and that size will more than likely extend to playing host to integrated hotel accommodation.
Other attractions to ensure that you stay within ’buying distance’ are family centres to distract the children and keep them occupied as the parents take a spending break and ofcourse, the ubiquitous multiplex cinema. All this combined with ease of parking (usually in spaces designed to accommodate cars numbering in the thousands) and the Dubai shopper’s friend, air conditioning …
As a result, I think personal preferences as to which mall people in Dubai like to shop at will probably be dependant on how it makes them feel, rather than what it offers compared to other malls. This is a factor that has been taken seriously by the designers, each factoring in a different ’personality’ into their buildings.
The Mall of the Emirates (or sometimes referred to as The Emirates Mall or Dubai Mall) was opened in 2005 and is the largest shopping mall outside the USA. It boasts 450 retailers, the first indoor ski facility in the Middle East, the largest indoor family entertainment centre in the country, a 14 screen multiplex cinema, over 70 restaurants and coffee shops, 2 hotels and a 500 seat theatre. You could literally spend a whole day here and come nowhere near to experiencing it all. The mall has a very cool, contemporary feel and feels as young as it is. When you enter, there’s plenty of light streaming through the ornate, grid roof making the environment light and airy. The polished surfaces reflect the light and give it an ever present gleaming ’just cleaned’ look (not to say that it isn’t regularly cleaned).
The mall stocks the best in European and American brands together with a multitude of shops selling more traditional fare. Any guests staying in the Al Qasr Hotel can take advantage of an hourly shuttlebus which leaves for the mall (stopping first by the Gold and Diamond Park) allowing passengers to alight in the mall’s valet parking area. Take care when coming back on the shuttlebus, it stops off at the Gold and Diamond Park and then the entrance of the Mina A’ Salam before returning back to the Al Qasr Hotel and the entrances to both the Mina A’ Salam and Al Qasr Hotel look VERY similar!
If you’d rather make life easy for yourself and go for the Dubai shopping mall the locals love in droves then try in the city centre, the Deira City Centre Mall located near the Dnata Intersection is an extremely popular shopping, entertainment and leisure complex. It’s got over 300 shops offering a range of high profile brands and parking spaces numbering in the thousands. The mall also houses the Carrefour hypermarket which is familiar to many European shoppers. It houses a multi-screen cinema complex, car showrooms, a family leisure complex and even a hotel. An all-round centre to say the least that is popular with many.
One of the first major shopping malls to have been built in Dubai, the BurJuman Centre at Khalid Bin Waleed Street in Bur Dubai, currently boasts 190 stores stocking popular American and European brands, offering a choice of restaurants, a food court and a number of cafes, including one cafe offering outside seating. The mall offers a relaxed yet vibrant atmosphere in the presence of shops selling the biggest brands, all enveloped in an architecture combining the modern with the traditional.
When it comes to interesting malls, there’s the Mercato Mall located on Jumeirah Beach Road. The mall is based on a Mediterranean architectural theme by combining flashes of French, Spanish and Italian influences to an intriguing design that’s based around the concept of a ’town square’ just like a typical town in those countries. This concept has been extended to the ’feel’ of the mall, where the shops face outward to the square and the shoppers are seen very much as a community of people coming together for social interaction who just also ’happen’ to be shopping too.
Dubai shopping malls number comfortably in the double digits and that number is ever growing with new developments that promise bigger and better. Rest assured, you will probably run out of money before you run out of malls to visit!
For more information on what the Dubai shopping experience can provide and more, try this site: Dubai Hotels
