UAE residents opt for Staycations this Eid
With Eid Al Fitr falling on a weekend, UAE residents are opting to spend their holidays at home in the UAE, choosing staycations over short trips away.
Since Eid coincides with the weekend off, most residents are seeing their holidays truncated to two days from the normal break of four or five days, including a weekend.
This has prompted them to cut back and stay home instead of blowing a small fortune on a two-day trip.
David George, a Filipino communications manager is a victim of the credit crunch. “I would have loved to go to Beirut, Sri Lanka or Egypt for a short three day vacation, but given the current situation I am unable to do so,” he tells Emirates247.com.
“Firstly in the last 24 months there has been no salary hike, secondly I have too many loans on my head. I also could not plan in advance to avail the discounted ticket rates due to uncertain job situation.”
Staycations, when people take an off to spend time indoors or at a resort in the same country, have gained in popularity in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Lots to do
The UAE has a variety of options this festive season from discounts at various dining outlets to special offers on leisure activities, and some residents feel there’s enough to do right here, what with theme parks, adventure sports and culture aplenty on offer.
“I am planning to go for a desert safari this time with my husband and family friends.
Generally we have our family friends over and we prepare a variety of dishes but this we plan to celebrate it this way, especially since Dubai has so much to offer,” says Salma Khan, an Indian housewife.
Anjana Raju, a 20-year-old student, says her family is staying home over the holidays.
“We will be staying in Dubai itself since my father has only a few days off and at the most we may visit a family friend or go for a movie.
We prefer staying indoors during Eid as most of the time there is rush outside because Eid is the time when people meet and greet each other,” she says.
Given the high-octane lives most UAE residents lead, holidays such as Eid Al Fitr, celebrated to mark the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, provide an occasion when family and friends can come together and spend some quality time with their near and dear.
“Eid is the only time we can give 100 per cent of our time to our family. On other holidays we generally do not get an off together, which is different during Eid.
We would have planned vacations in India, but since my father works in the private sector he has only the weekend,” says Safia Zuleikha, 24.
“So we are planning to go for a picnic, which will be fun as three to four cars will go together with all our family members,” she adds.
Sharing the same view as Safia is 22-year-old Rashida Saifee.
“We are planning to go to Umm Al Quwain, with all our relatives, which means all 18 of us will be spending an entire day together. In case plans don’t go as decided then we might stay in Dubai and go over to one of the family members’ place.
We rarely get opportunities like these to spend time with close ones, this is the best time to get together,” she says.
Travel plans
For a lucky few, however, packing and passports are on the radar.
“My friends and I are making plans to either go to Turkey or Egypt for which we are eagerly waiting for the dates to be declared so we can make plans accordingly.
This is the only time we all friends get an off together so we are eagerly waiting for the dates to be declared so we can make plans accordingly.
This is the only time we all friends get an off together so we want to spend it lavishly,” says Siddharth Jain, 27, an Indian manager at a logistics company.
Another, Karen Allam, a 35-year-old Irish advertising professional in Abu Dhabi, says she and her husband were simply tacking the holidays onto a couple of weeks’ leave to visit family and lie in the sun.
“You’ve got to take your holidays when you get them. What’s the point otherwise?” she says.