Dubai Mall business picking up after 'slow start'
After a slow start with tenants reporting “less footfall than expected”, business for Dubai Mall’s F&B operators is finally picking up.
Mohi-Din BinHendi, president of BinHendi — a major tenant in Dubai Mall — commented: “Admittedly in the beginning there, business was pretty bad.
“I think the decision for the mall owners to open when a lot of outlets hadn’t opened was not a good thing, but now Dubai Mall is really picking up, business is really happening.”
New Karim Rashid-designed outlet Switch’s director, Deem Al Bassam, added that there was “a lot of competition” in the world’s biggest mall.
“I think 120 restaurants are too much,” she said.
“They were expecting 30 million people per year to come in, but I don’t think that will happen this year.”
However Al Bassam said she was “very excite” about how the mall would perform in future.
“If [Switch] is successful now when the mall is empty, I imagine it will do very well once the mall is full,” she noted.
BinHendi added that he felt the impact of the economic slowdown on consumers had been a major contributing factor to the slow footfall.
“The psychological effect [of the downturn] on people’s minds was stopping them from spending — there was this big financial bang and a lot of people lost money, so psychologically consumers were badly affected,” he pointed out.
“But now, that effect is slowing. So business is going back — you can see it’s on track to moving back in a very positive direction.”
BinHendi added that The Dubai Shopping Festival (DSS) had also given business a boost.
“It definitely attracts a lot of people from around the GCC, mainly Qatar, Saudi Arabia — a lot of families. They feel comfortable, can enjoy a modern style of life, the malls and beaches are good, so that attraction is definitely there.
“Also some of the Europeans still like to come over during the hot period, partly because they get better hotel deals and also they enjoy the sun anyway,” he added.
BinHendi’s vice president — hospitality, Naveed Dowlatshahi, added that the group was seeing “a trend where footfall is increasing”.
“I think last year the thing was that most of us didn’t factor in the first year of operations [in Dubai Mall]; we thought from day one there’d be this big bang,” he said.
“So what we are doing now is factoring in realistically what will be the turnover for the first 12 to 24, months rather than expecting 90 % capacity from day one. We have learnt from that.
“And I think once the cinema opens, and Sega Republic, it’s going to be good. I still think it will become the prime mall in Dubai, in future,” he predicted.
The Meat Co and Ribs & Rumps regional operations manager Rob de Villiers agreed that operators needed to be realistic about how quickly the mall’s business would increase.
”We’re waiting to see what happens with Dubai Mall. It’s been a bit of a slow growth period in the mall itself; the footfall is definitely not what it should be.
“So we will hold on to that a little while longer and see towards the end of the year how things stand,” he said.
According to Saleh Bin Lahej Group’s hospitality division president Osama Salhin, it is still important for F&B players to have a presence in major projects like Dubai Mall.
“People ask why we have to be in Dubai Mall — and I say, with the size of this mall, you cannot not be there.
“You have to have a presence in a mall like this, especially a location like this,” he said.
“And I do not feel nervous about this; in fact, we just signed for two more outlets to open in the first quarter of 2010 in Mirdif City Centre. We’ve also signed for a mall in Oman and also a couple of outlets in Abu Dhabi.”
BinHendi agreed that mall projects were still key to the regional F&B industry.
“We’ve got another outlet coming up in Mirdif City Centre, set to open in 2010 — we have to be part of the game, part of these good malls when they open, just as we are part of Dubai Mall.
“So I think just as the malls pop up, we have to be in those malls,” he asserted. “No slowing down.”