Ladies-only days at 2 prime beach parks

The move is part of the civic body’s plan to make the leisure destinations more women-friendly so as to encourage them to do more physical activities and keep fit, Director of the Public Parks and Horticulture Department Ahmed Abdul Kareem told Khaleej Times.

Jumeirah Beach Park has been the only Dubai park that has a women-only day, which is Monday. The park will now have another day exclusively for ladies. — KT file photo

At present, there is only one ladies-day (Monday) observed in the Jumeirah Beach Park, which received a total of 292,000 visitors in 2012. “There were a lot of women visitors on Mondays. And we got the feedback that there should be more days dedicated for them. So, we decided to extend it for one more day in Jumeirah Beach Park and give two other ladies-only days in Al Mamzar Beach Park,” said Abdul Kareem.

The Al Mamzar Beach Park, Dubai’s most popular park with a total of 1.85 million visitors in 2012, did not have a ladies-only day ever since it was stopped some six years ago. The director said there were not many takers those days.

He said the extra days for ladies would be decided after studying visitors’ opinions and suggestions. “We are committed to know their requirements and facilitate our services according to that. We will take the feedback from tourists, residents, employees of private and government offices and students.”

The surveys will also analyse if frequent visitors can be given memberships instead of making them wait in long queues for tickets, if beaches should be dedicated for different groups of visitors and what special facilities should be arranged for each categories. “For example, we have five beaches in Al Mamzar. If we find the need, we will assign one beach for the tourists, one for local residents, one for students and so on.”

Abdul Kareem said the municipality was gearing up to prepare an appropriate beach park management system for the ladies-only days. “We will have to increase the number of female staff and provide special facilities for organising women’s-only events and special meals. We want to encourage them (women) to do more exercise. We will be assigning more female fitness trainers and female lifeguards.”

The municipality’s move complements the Dubai government’s multi-pronged initiatives aimed at providing better health to residents and reducing the burden of lifestyles diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension as well as its related risk factors.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi’s Yas Water World has announced a Ladies’ Night every Thursday from April 18 until the end of May, starting at 8pm to midnight, while in June the timings will be moved back one hour.

The evenings, where boys under nine will be allowed to attend with relatives, were not due to begin till May but had been brought forward due to a “huge demand”, the park said in a press release.

sajila@khaleejtimes.com