Dubai presents the largest shopping tourism offer in the Persian Gulf

05-10-23

The City of Gold on the Persian Gulf with more than three million people (75 percent of them expats) sports nearly 100 malls, many of them palatial shopping structures – think six-star browsing experiences.

Given the heat-pounding weather that restricts outdoor activity half the year, these labyrinthine retail megastructures provide all the entertainment one could wish for and with the added sweetness of air-conditioning.

There was a time in the recent past when Dubai was not only the self-proclaimed shopping capital of the world – and ran an annual weeks-long shopping festival to make that point – but the tax free territory was also the city of bargains.

Deals making such luxury goods as gold, jewelry, perfume, carpets and designer handbags, sunglasses and even phones were as plentiful as dates, ripe and ready for the picking no matter what the income bracket.

But while the winter Dubai Shopping Festival is still in motion, the deals are not. Unfortunately, recent visits to Dubai’s notorious souks in the heritage neighborhoods of Old Deira showed gold and silver still selling by the gram but not at prices unavailable elsewhere. A pair of very modest 24-carat gold stud earrings came with $200 price tag. Put in diamonds for $400 more.