Dubai is launching an enormous “fully-immersive” shopping mall in the emirates that will see visitors benefiting from smart fitting rooms, AI recommendations as well as the Middle East’s largest Chinatown.
Dubai Square, designed by Dubai Holding and Emaar Properties, will be in the heart of Dubai Creek Harbour, just 10 minutes from the airport.
The “retail metropolis” is designed “for the new era of customers, digital, connected and tech-savvy, and setting a benchmark for retail experiences in the 21st century.”
With over 8.07 million sq ft of gross floor retail space, Dubai Square will be equivalent to the size of 100 football pitches.
Inspiration has been taken from London’s Oxford Street, Los Angeles’s Beverly Hills, Paris’s Champs-Élysées, Tokyo’s Ginza, Piazza della Republica in Florence and Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, to name a few.
Technology is central to the mall. There will be custom-designed mobile apps, quick checkout solutions, search and barcode scanning applications, radio-frequency identification technology, mobile payments and click-and-collect services.
It’s intended to be a “playground for tech brands around the world,” filled with 3D printing, drones and artificial intelligence.
Shopping for fashion will be “unique and immersive” thanks to special VIP dressing rooms, smart fitting rooms with interactive mirrors, curated private fashion collections, personalised AI recommendations, 3D printed clothing and accessories, fashion museums and more.
The first floor will be entirely dedicated to luxury retail, dining and leisure outlets.
The shopping centre will also offer a waterpark, a Cineplex, sports arena and plenty of entertainment.
Dubai Square will host concerts and theatre shows, celebrity performances, acrobatics shows, museum-quality exhibitions and more.
If that wasn’t enough visitors can “lose themselves in a choice of global gastronomy,” from fusion and vegan to Peruvian and French-Vietnamese.
Specially designed apps for ordering food and beverage on the premises will minimise queuing and long wait-times, while others are set to provide personalised dining recommendations and 3D-printed food delicacies.
There will also be live cooking stations, street vendors, festive pop-up markets, grab-and-go F&B offerings and an organic market.
Furthermore, Dubai Square will feature an Art District – from permanent exhibitions to ephemeral performance art, from large-scale concerts to one-man shows.
The largest Chinatown in the Middle East will also be found in the mall. Over 200,000 Chinese nationals live in the United Arab Emirates while thousands of tourists from China visit every year.
Dubai hopes to attract 20 million tourists by 2020 and Emaar say the new mall will play a central role in driving retail sales in Dubai, expected to be over AED 160 billion (£34billion) by 2021.
His Excellency Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman, Emaar Properties, said: “Dubai Square disrupts the traditional mall and retail experience…With Dubai Square, we are delivering a new destination experience that will bring incredible value to our retail partners.
“Dubai Square is where technology meets the human touch, and retail meets next-generation entertainment. With its omnichannel offering, it not only drives in-store retail but also the online engagement of brands with customers.
“With its location in Dubai Creek Harbour, and by serving as the closest mega-retail district to millions of passengers passing through the Dubai International Airport, it meets the real need for a new generation lifestyle destination, especially given Dubai’s growth in population and tourist arrivals.”
Last month, the UAE announced free visas for tourists under 18 years of age during the summer.
