Unspecified/General

Along the broader Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road corridor about 30 minutes south-east of central Dubai, Global Village is the largest seasonal cultural-and-shopping festival in the Middle East and one of the most heavily visited annual tourist attractions in the United Arab Emirates. The 1.6-million-square-metre seasonal festival site operates each year from late October through late April, with the entire site substantially reconfigured and reinstalled at the beginning of each new season. The festival traces its origins to 1997, when a small original site at the central Dubai Creekside hosted a 90-day cultural festival featuring small national pavilions from several friendly nations. The festival proved sufficiently popular that it has been repeated annually ever since, with the original Creekside site eventually proving too small to accommodate the growing visitor demand. The festival relocated to a larger temporary site at the Dubai Festival City in 2002, then to the current permanent Dubailand site in 2007. The festival today hosts approximately 90 individual country pavilions representing some 75 nations and regional groupings from around the world. Each individual country pavilion occupies a substantial dedicated space (typically 500 to 5,000 square metres depending on the size of the participating nation) and presents a representative selection of cultural performances, traditional crafts, food-and-beverage offerings and small retail products from the participating country. The principal pavilions include the substantial India Pavilion (typically the largest single pavilion at the festival), the Pakistan Pavilion, the China Pavilion, the Egypt Pavilion, the Turkey Pavilion, the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, the Iran Pavilion and the United Arab Emirates Pavilion. The festival also includes a substantial Carnaval theme-park zone with more than 175 individual rides and games, several large amphitheatre spaces hosting daily cultural performances and concerts, the popular Floating Market section (with traditional vendors selling from small boats in a small artificial canal), an extensive Food Court with more than 250 individual restaurants and food vendors from around the world and a small Dragon Lake fishing area where families can rent fishing rods. The festival hosts more than 9 million individual visits during each operating season, with average daily attendance exceeding 60,000 visitors during the peak operating period.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Dubailand, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Telephone: 04-362-4114

Website: globalvillage.ae

Opening Date: 01/01/1997