A retail spending boom is driving up demand for Santas across malls in the UAE this festive season.
With some shopping centres reporting record footfall, retailers are expecting a bumper month of sales.
“It’s been a much busier year,” said Marina Stanvenko, a project manager at Creative Event Solutions, which supplies Santas to malls and restaurants.
The company has tailored five extra Santa suits to cope with demand, with rates as high as Dh1,000 an hour for those willing to work on December 25.
Bilingual Arabic-speaking Santas command a premium.
As malls compete for shoppers over the coming weeks, having a full-time complement of Santas and elves is a crucial driver for year-end sales.
“Welcome to Winter Village” reads a facade at the entrance to Abu Dhabi Mall, adorned with images of elves, fake snow and a three-storey tree. The mall has a thrice daily elf show until January 4.
“It definitely makes us more likely to come here,” said Claire Bittard, who was posing for a photograph in front of a 7ft snowman in the mall.
“It’s nice to see all the decorations, especially now that I have children.”
The Wafi Mall in Dubai ships a specially made grotto from Britain every year that takes three days to assemble.
A member of Wafi’s marketing team said: “We hire Santa locally, we have him in the grotto for 24 days and charge Dh60 per person.
“And every person that sees Santa gets discount vouchers for stores in the mall, so there is a reason to come back.
“In 2012, we had about 6,500 visitors to Santa’s Grotto.”
The festive spending spree caps a year in which consumer credit has ballooned and malls have reported record footfall.
The Dubai Mall, owned by Emaar Properties, has attracted more than 6 million shoppers a month this year. Visitor numbers to the world’s largest shopping centre by area has risen some 24 per cent from last year.
Consumer lending has risen every month since January through September, according to data from the UAE Central Bank.
It is not just shopping malls that are gaining from that trend. Restaurants are also cashing in, with many fully booked for the festive period.
Helena Al Sayed, a marketing director at Dubai’s Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, said: “Christmas is a massive opportunity for the hotel. We have 140 children booked in for the Kids’ Corner, 450 covers over two different restaurants, when there is usually 250 to 290 covers for a Friday brunch.”
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