UAE: 7 in 10 residents enjoy dining out every week
‘Work hard, play hard’ – this is the saying about how to achieve work-life harmony which UAE residents follow by taking their eyes off the task at hand and getting involved in entertainment and recreation.
As can be witnessed in the recent survey that reveals "97 per cent of UAE citizens like to spend at least once a month on entertainment".
In youGov surveys of entertainment, 1,000 people from all over the country were asked. The Entertainment & Sports Report of communications firm duke+mir, in addition, showed that 81 per cent of residents in the UAE have at least one paid entertainment subscription. Comparatively, 30 per cent of the population in the UAE has a subscription that they never use and would cancel.
And seven out of 10 of us dine out every week, the research found.
From Michelin to coffeehouse, residents do love to eat out. As the Latvian expat and PR expert Vlada Lomova said: I like going out on the weekends because Dubai never fails to surprise me.
She said:"I’m out every weekend and always look for something new – Dubai Opera concerts, new coffee shops. I enjoy finding new spots, brands, pop-ups, events, and projects." — Michelle Ebert.
Lomova went on: "I like spending my weekends outside since it’s so nice here in Dubai right now. I play sport in the morning and then I am all day with friends, at the beach or at fairs, shows and events."
Weekends for Sharjah resident Nisrin Arsiwala mean turning off and catching up with the family. ‘The way we manage is by hanging out and making dinner at home, or watching a movie or playing board games. We go out twice or once a month to the movies," she continued.
As Jonathan Ivan-Duke, duke+mir’s founder and partner, pointed out: "People in UAE love to dine out. 70 per cent of its inhabitants dine out at least once a week – huge inroads for the restaurant-dom.
"Dubai is a foodie paradise, there are 27,000 restaurants and cafes around the city. You never need to drive anywhere else to come across one great one. It’s a popular hobby because of that," he said.
Subscription-based economy
The subscription of paid entertainment channels is also on the rise in the UAE. It is one of a much larger worldwide subscription-based economy that will reach a record $1.5 trillion by 2025. The immense amount would make the subscription economy equal to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s leading countries and economies, the research found.
According to the research, UAE’s entertainment subscriptions were spread across streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon for ebooks, online fitness, sports streaming, music or podcast streaming, etc.
In 2025, the global online subscription economy will be worth $1.5trillion, duke+mir’s report said. More than a third of all users own subscriptions they don’t want and there are millions of dirhams worth of unused and dormant accounts lying around.
These are some other highlights of the report:
Almost four in 10 (37 per cent) are regularly out and about to watch sports, 24 per cent go to the movies, and 23 per cent go to live shows once a week. One-third (66 per cent) do sport every week for fun; 75 per cent of 18-24 year olds engage in a sport activity every week.
Some 73 per cent of adolescents regularly use a computer or video game on a weekly basis, and 31 per cent of 18–24-year-olds have a paid-for subscription to one.
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