Mall of the Emirates Bets AED 5 Billion That Shoppers Want to Linger, Not Just Buy

Majid Al Futtaim just put a number on how much it costs to make a mall feel like a destination again: AED 5 billion. On October 1, the company unveiled The Hangout, a new indoor-outdoor lifestyle precinct at Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, built around four entertainment concepts, Activate, SOCO, Explorers, and Magic Planet, and eighteen food and beverage spots spanning Indian, Levantine, Italian, and Pan-Asian cuisine. The space connects via a climate-controlled walkway to the mall's existing theater and Fashion Dome.

The rollout is deliberately staggered: Activate opens this month, SOCO follows in the fourth quarter, and Explorers and Magic Planet arrive through early 2027. Khalifa Bin Braik, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Asset Management, said The Hangout "responds to that shift by bringing entertainment, dining and social experiences together in a way that creates more reasons for people to visit, stay and connect." Ignace Lahoud, CEO of the company's entertainment and lifestyle arm, called it the future of location-based entertainment, built for demand that is "dynamic, communal, and enduring."

Every mall operator on earth is chasing the same fix right now: e-commerce took the transaction, so physical retail is selling the hangout instead of the purchase. What makes this one worth watching is the scale of the bet, AED 5 billion is a lot of landscaped courtyard to build on the hope that people still want somewhere to be, not just something to buy.

Source: INTLBM

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →