DAMMAM, 11 July 2003 — The Summer Festival in the Eastern Province, which was formally inaugurated on Monday by Prince Abdul Aziz ibn Fahd ibn Abdullah, head of the Eastern Province Tourism Board, is proving a damp squib.
The festival, which kicked off last Wednesday and will go on for a month, is being organized by the Eastern Province Tourism Board in cooperation with the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The inauguration of the carnival here on Monday gave hope to the organizers as it drew large crowd for the first two days. The carnival has various entertainments for children and adults, and this is the first time such a carnival has been organized in the region. But it appears that its popularity is gradually waning.
On Wednesday Prince Abdul Aziz inaugurated another event at the prestigious Al-Rashid Mall, where there are several stalls depicting different aspects of the Kingdom. But to visitors the main attraction is the festival discount offered by several shops in the mall together with the door prizes.
However, most of the shops not only at the Rashid Mall but around the Eastern Province give special discounts throughout the year.
Today the prince is scheduled to open another event at Half Moon Beach. The organizers have great expectations of the Half Moon Beach event and expect tourists from other parts of the Kingdom as well as from the neighboring GCC countries like Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
The organizers originally expected nearly six million tourists from different parts of the Kingdom as well as from the neighboring countries. The festival is still in its early days and, therefore, it is difficult to predict whether these expectations will come true or not. But many residents from the Eastern Province are now traveling either abroad or to other destinations in the country. Hundreds of expatriates have also left for their home countries, and already shops and business premises wear a deserted look.
Moreover, the period has seen bad weather in the Eastern Province with the mercury shooting up to 47 degrees Celsius and the humidity to 90 percent and above.
