The Hindu Business Line : Indian participation growing in Dubai shopping festival

THE annual Dubai Shopping Festival, which got off to a grand start with a spectacular opening ceremony over the weekend, has myriad attractions and entertainment, shopping and exhibitions topped off with a million dollars in raffles every day.

The Indian participation in the festival is growing every year and this year, the Indian pavilion at the Global Village has 215 stands displaying arts and crafts from all over the country as well as 15 restaurants serving a medley of Indian cuisine, Mr Sunil Bhatia, main co-ordinator for the pavilion's activities, told Business Line.

The theme of this year's Indian pavilion is Kerala and its many tourist attractions. The pavilion, inaugurated by the Kerala Minister for Tourism, Mr K.V. Thomas, resembles traditional Kerala royal architecture and features a variety of crafts and jewellery from Kerala.

Mr Bhatia said that the well-known Khayam cultural group from Kerala and another big group of folklore artistes from the State would be entertaining visitors during the course of the month-long festival.

The organisers of DSF said in a statement made available to Business Line that the Global Village, housed in the new Dubai Festival City venue, features 38 international pavilions, food and refreshment outlets, a large funfair and great shopping deals.

Last year, during DSF 2003, there were over 3.1 million visitors to the Global Village alone, the organisers said. The daily raffle draws include two Lexus cars, five Nissan cars and 100 gold coins. The raffles will continue for the 32 days of the Festival.

The biggest ever draw of DSF is giving away 90 Lexus Cars, four villas from EMAAR Properties and Dh 6,750,000 in cash and all this on the purchase of a raffle ticket worth Dh 200, the organisers said.

Additionally, festival prizes of 1 kg of gold are also being distributed in the form of 100 World Family commemorative gold coins each day.