Date: 26/8/04
Gulf News 22nd august, 2004 Official statistics about the various activities of the Qatar Summer Wonders 2004 point to a successful festival this year, with the Holiday on Ice performance and the shopping experiences with live entertainment and promotions being the most popular activities in the month-long festival.
The figures released by the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) represent the first qualitative analysis undertaken in the festival's three-year history.
Fred van Eijk, CEO of the Qatar Tourism Authority, said: "The participation of more than 600 outlets, the spectacular performances at the Holiday on Ice shows, the diverse range of activities and the large footfall reported at the malls are some of the key elements that have contributed to the success of this festival."
Leading hotels reported reasonably good summer occupancy rates.
Four of the leading shopping malls – Doha City Center, Hyatt Plaza, Landmark and The Mall, witnessed a rise in footfall with thousands of people visiting the shopping destinations daily to take advantage of the promotions.
Visitors were also entertained daily by quality performers such as balloon artists, clowns, jugglers and magicians, plus the chance to meet Bshara, the official mascot of the festival, who would visit the malls at select timings.
The Holiday on Ice performance in particular reported an impressive 36,000 people watching the shows during the entire month, averaging 1,165 people per day in the 1,500-capacity tent.
"Breaking our initial expections of 500 people per show, the Holiday on Ice has been one of the highly successful activities of this year's festival," said van Eijk.
"The last week especially saw record full-house attendance, with people rushing to watch the few remaining shows."
Bshara Village was another successful activity, selling more than 29,000 entrance tickets during the month.
The Doha 2006 Asian Games' stands at Bshara Village and City Centre saw more than 3,000 people registering as volunteers for the games in the first week, showing that both nationals and expatriates were keen in ensuring the success of the games.
Qatar Summer Wonders also further fuelled the region's passion for golf by holding daily golf games at the City Centre in association with the Qatar Golf Federation. Some 20,000 children played at this specially built golfing arena throughout the month while over 400 Qatari nationals enrolled for golf lessons at the Doha Golf Club.
The weekly raffle draws, organised by Qatar Tourism and Dar Al Sharq Printing and Publishing Group, remained a high point, with more than 10.1 million raffle coupons being entered into the four draws. These denoted over 500 million riyals in sales.
A total of two million riyals in prizes was given away to lucky participants. The prizes included three top-of-the-range Nissan cars, diamond sets, gold and Samsung electronics.
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