Muscat – Hamptons, Oman’s real estate strategy and consulting firm, today hosted its second Retailers’ Event at the Mövenpick Hotel, Muscat – bringing together some of the country’s most prominent retail business owners, brand operators, landlords, and investors for a morning of market intelligence, open dialogue, and strategic insight.

The event drew senior decision-makers from across the Omani retail ecosystem – including chief executives, managing directors, franchise operators, commercial directors, and financial professionals – creating a concentrated gatherings of retail leadership in Oman.

The event was designed around a simple but powerful premise: that retailers who share a location share a future. When footfall rises in a well-curated retail environment, every tenant benefits. When the wrong tenant mix undermines customer experience, every operator in that environment pays the price.

Hamptons convened the event to bring this shared interest into the open and to give Oman’s retail leaders a dedicated platform to connect, collaborate, and be heard.

The morning featured exclusive market intelligence from Hamptons’ Strategy and Consulting team, followed by an open platform for attendees to raise concerns, share challenges, and ask questions directly. The format was deliberately designed to allow the retail community’s voice to be heard alongside the data – not in spite of it.

Central to the programme was Hamptons’ presentation on tenant mix strategy across five retail properties spanning Muscat, Nizwa, and Salalah – a subject the firm believes is too often treated as secondary to rental revenue, at the long-term cost of both landlords and tenants alike.

Hamptons presented detailed analysis of five distinct retail properties, each representing a different format, catchment, and commercial opportunity:

▸  Nizwa Grand Mall – Nizwa – A 33,344 m² community-anchored destination mall, serving 83,000 local residents across Nizwa and its surrounding wilayats while simultaneously drawing more than 500,000 annual tourists visiting Nizwa Fort and the Jebel Akhdar mountain region.

▸  Wafa Walk – Salalah – A 4,695 m² café-led lifestyle and entertainment strip that has established itself as Salalah’s premier social destination. Salalah’s extraordinary Khareef season attracted more than one million tourists between June and August 2024 – a record.

▸  The Qube – Muscat – A 6,094 m² F&B and lifestyle destination at 66.9% occupancy, located adjacent to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque – Oman’s most-visited attraction and a destination for tourists from across the world. Hamptons is actively seeking Omani cuisine restaurants, international fine dining, and heritage retail to build a world-class dining and lifestyle offer befitting this unique location. Tourists visiting the Grand Mosque arrive directly at The Qube – the property is positioned to become the definitive post-mosque dining experience in Muscat.

▸  Al Bab Al Kabir – ABAK, Old Muscat – A 3,169 m² retail destination in historic Old Muscat, in close proximity to Muttrah Souq, the Corniche, and Muttrah Port,.

▸  Ghala Heights Complex – Ghala, Muscat – A mixed-use development comprising 3,827 m² of ground-floor retail below 26,020 m² of offices, 144 apartments and 340 Key Mövenpick hotel . Ghala Heights presents one of Muscat’s most compelling near-term retail leasing opportunities. Hamptons is targeting F&B, ladies’ fashion, health and wellness, and lifestyle retail to serve the building’s professional population and the growing Ghala Heights Complex residential catchment.

A recurring theme throughout the morning was Hamptons’ argument that the long-term commercial success of any retail property depends not on maximising rental income from whoever is willing to pay – but on placing the right tenants in the right categories, creating an environment where every operator is set up to succeed.

Analysis presented at the event demonstrated how poorly calibrated tenant mixes  result in reduced footfall, shorter dwell times, lower spend per visit, and ultimately higher tenant turnover, as operators underperform in environments that were never built around their customer. A well-constructed tenant mix, by contrast, creates mutual reinforcement: each tenant drives the footfall that benefits its neighbours, and the property as a whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

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