The Fiesta Called Dubai Summer Surprises

The world admires Dubai not only for constructing landmarks, but also for sharing out festive spirits.
Tourists flock at its doorsteps in millions each year to have a bite of its tourism and shopping bonanzas.
These offerings overwhelm the nation's year long tourism itinerary. Whether it was summer or winter, the city of Dubai could be seen playing host to numerous tourism and shopping festivals of mass entertainment value. Dubai's recreational outlets, Dubai hotels, malls and various governmental organizations could be seen actively taking part in these events.

Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS) is one such shopping and entertainment extravaganza that runs for two months each year. The festival normally takes place around the month of June and ends in August. Thousands fly in Dubai during this period from allover the globe, to take part in this annual tourism drive, which helps in brining together Dubai's hospitality, retail and entertainment sectors on a common platform. This results in a business spike for Dubai hotels and the city's retail market at a time, the Arabian heat and summer vacations should pull their shutters down.

Travelers and the local populace get to enjoy local and international events during these two months, such as Dubai Fashion Fiesta at DWTC, a recycled art exhibition at Reef Mall and a photography exhibition at DCC planned in the 2008 leg, in addition to the other shopping and outdoor activities. Organizers have pursued with the plan of organizing daily new events over the last few years, so that the excitement of these two months continues to grow. Dubai hotels play a key role in these events, which, by offering special holiday packages and food fiestas, raise the bar of leisure even more.

Modhesh Fun City, which is named after the festival's yellow mascot, is slated to play the main host for the upcoming events. The city spreads over an area of several thousand square meters and gets divided according to the nature of events planned therein, such as arts and crafts zone, heritage zone, lego zone, sports zone etc. It wasn't too long ago, when Dubai's hospitality and the retail market would go empty during the long summer months. Many Dubai hotels would let their staff to have annual vacation during these scorching months. However, things began changing since the inauguration of DSS in 1998. The number of travelers began going up and those fleeing out of the city started staying put during summer events.

According to the figures available from DSS 2007, the number of visitors stood at 2.16 million with a consumer spending of Dh3.08 billion. Dubai hotels also reported a very high occupancy during the same period.
Some of the main events planned during DSS 2008 are:
World of Stories, Kids Fashion, Kids Olympic Games, Sheila and Abaya Fashion, Oliver! The Musical, Junior Chefs Award, Recycled Art Exhibition and Dubai Fashion Fiesta.

Despite the slow down of the US economy and the world oil prices mushrooming up like never before, Dubai Summer Surprises is expected to draw in a record number of domestic and international visitors in 2008 as well. Dubai's air will be full of festive spirits once again this year, and its recreational and retail outlets, including Dubai hotels, will achieve newer landmarks in business as usual.