The entrance to Fun City, Doha, Qatar
nouveau riche of the tourist industry, the Russians, middle- class Indians and the Chinese – especially the Chinese. They flooded the Dubai Mall, Mirdiff City Centre, Mall of the Emirates and every shopping centre in between. And the FECs within them. The plan now is to put a rail link between Dubai and Abu
Dhabi (long overdue), eventually linking all seven emirates and one day realising the ambition of linking all of the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council, the local equivalent to the European Community) countries. What all of that will do for tourism cannot be anything but positive. Against all of this background, the amusement industry
has moved slowly in the past year. Banks are tougher on funding which is hampering the expansion of the business in new territories like Iran which is also affected by sanctions. But there are bright spots. Egypt, pre-riots, was the new marketplace for the industry and may remain so if it has
24 InterPark May-June 2011
a peaceful transfer to democracy. Syria, the Lebanon and Jordan are all freely quoted as the bright stars on the FEC horizon – politics permitting. The main supplier to the region, Prakash Vivekanand,
at ASI said: “There are still projects out there; there has not been a case of projects being cancelled either. They are slow or are on the back-burner for the moment.” He thinks the rapid escalation of projects in Egypt may be stalled while the mess there is sorted out. “What happened in Egypt may have a ‘ripple’ effect
throughout the Middle East with a resulting slowing down of development. The real issue is that the sector has slowed down since 2007/8 and the onset of the recession. “In general economic terms, rents in the region have slid
and now there is greater supply than demand, but it is only an interim phase. A lot of the ex-pats have gone home with the slowing down of business or they have gone to other
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