In recognition of its excellence during its 21st season

• Global Village sets a new record for excellence in guest satisfaction at the level of the entertainment sector.
• Global Village has achieved new records in guest overall experience satisfaction throughout the 21st season.

Dubai, UAE, May 4, 2017:  Under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Global Village, the region’s first and most successful multicultural festival park, has received the ‘Dubai Service Excellence Scheme Award’ for 2017 during the annual ceremony that was organized by the Department of Economic Development in Dubai on Wednesday, May 3rd. 

The award was received in recognition of the success of Global Village in achieving high scores in terms of guest satisfaction and happiness feedback over 159 days of its operation. The award also acknowledged the overall experience of guests at the multicultural festival park. 

An extensive evaluation process against strict standards was adhered to by Global Village to achieve this award. 

The excellence award programme highlights the importance of a clean, well-organized, caring and maintained business environment as well as the ability to provide customer service that is highly dependent on the style and knowledge of frontline employees, which depends on the institution’s trainings and skills development.

Commenting on the award, Ahmed Hussain Bin Essa, CEO of Global Village said: “This award is a great honour for Global Village, which underwent an intensive evaluation process over the whole year and passed all the customer service standards. We believe we have been able to achieve this due to all the developments and trainings we have worked on across all aspects of the park to deliver exemplary services. 

“Receiving the excellence award is a further incentive to continue to challenge ourselves and to keep setting higher standards of achieving guest satisfaction.  We are continuing to grow as a destination in terms of offerings and service and are keen to provide all that is unique and innovative in the entertainment sector to enrich the experiences of our guests the seasons to come. '

The Dubai Service Excellence Programme is designed to enhance excellence in customer service standards and customer confidence. 

The award aims to provide best management practices to improve productivity and work efficiency, and is a complement to the Dubai Quality Award. During 2015, Global Village won the award for the ‘Dubai Quality Appraisal Programme’ for the leisure and entertainment category. 

This award was presented as Global Village revealed detailed feedback and statistics from its guest satisfaction survey conducted throughout its 21st season. The immensely popular destination park closed its gates on April 8th with a record breaking attendance of 5.6 million guests over 159 days.

The scores revealed that the average amount of time spent by a guest at Global Village in its 21st season was 5.5 hours versus 5 hours in its 20th season, clearly showing a marked increase in the engagement of the customer while at the festival park. 

One of the key factors for the increased time spent at the park was linked to the strategic plan of Global Village to include more bespoke entertainment as part of the guest experience, besides the 27 international concerts and 12,000+ shows. This was seen to be further validated by the increase of the ‘shows experience’ which went up to 9.2/10 this season versus 9.1/10 in the 20th season. 

Another highlight of the survey was Global Village maintaining a score of 9/10 in its ‘Guests Happiness Index’ defining the success this season had amongst its 5.6 million guests who enjoyed the widest ever range of offerings and experiences.

The guest feedback also revealed a score of 8.7/10 in the category of ‘Funfair Experience’, 8.9/10 in the ‘Shopping Experience’ and 9.2/10 in the ‘Dining Experience’. 

With the inclusion of new pavilions this season, Global Village had a total of 30 pavilions with more than 10,000 exhibitors across 95 nationalities. Visitors made up a mix of 75% residents and 25% tourists. Arab expats topped the list of residents at 35% with Asian expats coming a close second at 33% and Emirati guests at 16%. The remaining 16% included a mix of Africans and western expats from Europe, Australia and USA. 

The digitally driven 21st season of Global Village also gained a total of 330,000 facebook fans, 120,000 instagram followers, a total of 5 million views over 1500 stories posted on Snapchat and 25,000 twitter followers culminating in a total reach of 75 million people internationally across its social media platforms. 

Additional facts & figures of the 21st season: 

• 159 days of operations 
• 2.3 billion dirhams of business transactions completed in 21st season
• 2 million dirhams given away in prizes at Global Village 
• 78 number of fireworks and fountain fireworks displays
• 600,000 soft toys given away at Fantasy Island 
• More than 1.5 million cups of karak chai sold 
• More than 20,000 students were visited by Global Village team in over 40 schools