January 19 2017

More Qatari entrepreneurs and startups are expected to showcase their products at Shop Qatar festival, a senior official at Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has said. "Around 60 entrepreneurs will rotate at various participating malls throughout the month-long event," QTA’s chief tourism development officer Hassan al-Ibrahim said on Wednesday. “One of our main objectives in this festival, besides further enhancing the shopping offering in the country, is to support Qatari entrepreneurs, startups specifically,” he stressed. Shop Qatar also provides various opportunities for entrepreneurs to promote their products, network with others, and get feedback from the market, according to QTA. Pop-up shops are located across five of the participating malls: Ten at Mall of Qatar, and five each at Ezdan, Landmark, The Gate, and Lagoona malls. 

QTA selects entrepreneurs for these festivals based on their performance on previous participations. It also uses data bases shared by its partners such as Qatar Development Bank, Bedaya Centre, and Qatar Business Incubation Centre. “Definitely we are going to assess their performance even in the malls and hopefully invite them in future festivals as well,” al-Ibrahim noted. While many of the pop-up shops focus on apparel, children’s fashion, abayas, jewellery, and accessories, others sell art, furniture, and chocolates. The senior QTA official hopes pop-up shops will be retained and become a permanent feature of the festival in the next editions. “We will assess our key performance indicators, numbers, and performance of the entrepreneurs here, and definitely it will be a feature in the shopping festival that we have,” he added. 

Shop Qatar also partnered with Virginia Commonwealth University – Qatar, an institution dedicated to art and design, aimed at providing a platform for their students and graduates to showcase their work. With the onset of vacations in the neighbouring GCC countries, QTA expects the number of shoppers and visitors (domestic and foreign) at the festival to rise further in the coming days. “We are expecting large numbers to come this week and the coming weeks, we are expecting a regional drive because of the festival,” al-Ibrahim said. About the entertainment shows, he noted that ticket sales continue to rise as well, including the Doha Comedy Festival. 

“We are encouraging people to enjoy this opportunity to have fun in these concerts,” he added. According to QTA, visitors can avail a range of accommodation offers at Qatar’s globally-recognised hotels and hotel apartments when booking through Expedia.com. Qatar Airways, Shop Qatar’s travel partner, is offering ‘carefully designed flight packages’ for GCC travellers to encourage them “to turn their stop-over into a shop-over” with up to 25% discount on air fares and double Qmiles.

© Gulf Times 2017