The year-end holiday rush is over, but globetrotters now have another reason to travel, international shopping festivals. Foreign tourist boards and airlines are busy wooing the shopaholic travellers with attractive packages and shopping discounts.

To begin with, there is a month-long Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) starting 24 January, followed by The Great Singapore Sale and Malaysia Shopping Carnival later in June.

Many shopaholic have already started packing their bags for the DSF. Last year, around 2.5 lakh Indians visited Dubai during the festival. A 10-15% increase is projected this year. “Dubai is just a two-hour flight from Mumbai and is well connected by all major carriers with more than five flights a day, drawing many from this city,” says Cox & Kings executive director Arup Sen.

Airlines, too, are cashing in on the popularity of the festival. “Our airline expects a load factor of above 80% during the festival,” says Orhan Abbas, VP, India and Nepal, Emirates Airlines. Emirates is one of the sponsors of the DSF. The carrier is also offering special DSF packages starting at $75 per day per person (including accommodation, breakfast and transfers, and excluding airfare). And, how can it miss the loaded bags that tourists return with from shopping festivals.

It has allowed additional 10 kg free baggage on return flights from Dubai. Other destinations in the queue are also expected to be thronged by Indian shoppers. While last year 44,821 Indian tourists visited Malaysia in June, when the shopping festival was on, around 80,000 visited Singapore. “We are expecting a 10-15% increase in number of arrivals during this year’s mega sale carnival,” says Manoharan, director-India, Tourism Malaysia.

The shopping festivals are a great bet for tourist boards as it positions the country as ‘shopper’s destination’, attracts not just individual travellers but families and also rake in the moolah from Indians, now perceived to be high spenders.

“The Singapore Great Sale will happen anywhere between mid-May and July this year. As it’s vacation time in India, families are likely to attend it. The average spend of Indians is 1,200-1,300 Singapore dollars per person per trip. For Singapore, Indians figure in the list of top five high-spending tourists,” says Kenneth Lim, area director, Northern and Eastern India, Singapore Tourist Board.

The tourist board at present is busy working out deals for Indians with Indian carriers and also its national carrier, Singapore Airlines. Adds Manoharan, “Indians are one of the top spenders in Malaysia.” The average spend by Indians in Malaysia is $123 per day.

Last year, 3.5 million tourists visited the Dubai shopping Festival from 200 countries and spent about dirham 10.2 billion (one dirham is about Rs 11).

India’s Ministry of Tourism for sure is learning lessons from foreign tourist boards. It, too, now plans to bet big on shopping festivals to promote Incredible India. There will be four shopping festivals in Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Noida and Bhubaneshwar this year to portray India as shoppers’ delight. Will the Indian globetrotters be delighted