The world’s largest indoor theme park is set to open in Dubai this month to lure back some of the tourists and residents who often flee abroad during the scorching desert summer.
In a sandy suburb beyond Dubai’s concrete jungle and pockets of artificially green spaces, IMG Worlds of Adventure’s boxy exterior belies a 140,000-sq. m air-conditioned cathedral of entertainment teeming with animatronic dinosaurs, roller coasters, Marvel superheroes and Cartoon Network characters.
Zombies pop out from dark corners of a haunted house and the Velociraptor coaster throttles passengers within a misty simulated rain forest dubbed the Lost Valley. Families in Dubai have few places to stretch their legs beyond expensive malls while temperatures outside can approach 50 degrees Celsius.
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“Dubai still suffers from a certain amount of seasonality during the June, July, August period,” Lennard Otto, CEO of the new $1 billion attraction, said.
“We will hopefully drive tourism in those periods to make Dubai an all-year-round destination,” he said, ahead of the theme park’s Aug. 31 opening.
Both the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, and Saudi Arabia have launched initiatives this year to create more fun for their car and smartphone-obsessed people.
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Saudi Arabia announced in June that it was in talks with Six Flags Entertainment Corp to build theme parks, and the UAE created a “Happiness Ministry” in February to look at ways of measuring and improving quality of life for citizens. — Reuters