Simon Thomson

Fast forward to the 1990’s. North American-style regional malls emerged in Dubai; a format rapidly rolled out across the GCC.

This caused an expanding vacuum in the market that needed to be rapidly filled, variously to provide ‘a voice’ for mall developers with government, to be a central source of market intelligence for developers, retail brands, franchisees, investors, banks and so on.

Recognising this void, a heady core of influential shopping centre talent of experienced ME retail professionals, senior international mall managers and some notable mall Principals came together with the like mind of forming a ‘Council of Shopping Centres’.

A small group of pioneers from across the GCC, of which I was one, now known as ‘The Founding Fathers’, would convene regularly in Dubai to ‘plot’ the establishment of The Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC), to be headquartered in Dubai.

The registration process took months of discussions with all concerned in Dubai as well as in New York with the International Council of Shopping Centers with whom the MECSC was to be affiliated. By 1993/1994 the formalities were completed, and the first annual conference was held.

My firm, Retail International (R) had already created its own Middle East retail data bank and, soon became a ‘Go To’ source for developers, the media, financial institutions, and government, all requiring ever more sophisticated statistics. Expanded and updated regularly, we soon covered the whole MENA region, undertaking market studies for private clients alongside publishing freely available country reports. Initially this was via keynote presentations at MECSC conferences and later the internet.

Over time the MECSC has developed its own shopping centre data covering twenty-five countries. Such were the seeds from which the MECSC was formed, and records of shopping centre and retail markets grew. 30 years later, I am proud to have been part of this process.