Dubai is a true melting pot of cultures, as is the UAE. The cosmopolitan lifestyle of the country is gaining world wide recognition every day. More tourists are being converted to residents, impressed with the way people of different backgrounds co exist and live here.

The foremost reason for this successful blend of cultures and lifestyle, is because of the foresight and vision of the leaders of this country. Another reason can be attributed to the business people with diverse backgrounds adding their unique flavor to the commercial success of every emirate in the UAE.

Dubai and the UAE has managed to attract people from different regions, to re-locate and start off life without feeling ‘homesick’. This is partly due to the fact that every day comforts that a person is used to and takes for granted in their home country, are available and replicated here.

A Basic need that sustains a multicultural Society:

While there are many basic needs to sustain a multicultural society, one of them is definitely the availability of ethnic food. Let’s look how this aspect is tied in to ethnic marketing of commercial property and real estate.

Ethnic marketing of Real Estate:

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Ethnic marketing sometimes may not sound right at first glance, but it has nothing to do with racial profiling and such. In the broadest sense it is to be looked at as catering to the needs of a multi-cultural society and addressing the needs of a market segment.

We take a look at how smart ethnic marketing of commercial property in a neighborhood can create a successful and sought after project or community to live in.

Sell Commercial Retail Space Wisely:

Consider a scenario where in a multi-cultural community or project, one market segment (residents) have a great liking for a certain kind of food (that’s what the question mark is for, in the picture above).
If their choice of food is not readily available, and they have to drive in traffic a long distance to enjoy their cuisine, it will be a matter of time before they start to look for an alternative place of residence, either for the sake of convenience or to ward off a feeling of homesickness.

In newly developed projects or communities offering retail space, specifically retail space for food outlets and restaurants, if all the available space was to be taken up by coffee shops and one type of food choice, you can soon see the inconvenience it would be to residents. They would need to drive to another side of town to indulge in their favorite cuisine.

If a Project Developer or Real Estate Marketing Agency were to ‘try’ and make sure that there were diverse outlets available for catering to the multi cultural residents, this would ensure that they indeed build a true cosmopolitan culture and promote their project and the image of the country as a true melting pot (!) of cultures.

Real Estate Agents can use this concept as a Value Add…

…when they market a property to commercial investors looking at starting up a retail business. By doing a generic market survey of existing communities and projects, and looking at the retail space available in relation to the concept outlined in this article, you can offer valuable advice on what type of retail business opportunity there is in a project, with assured ROI to a potential investor.

The enterprising Real Estate agent can either do a basic survey, or hire an authorized market and property survey organization to carry out this task. Real Estate companies and astute Property Investors can go one step further and invest in such retail outlets themselves, to be sold later at a healthy profit to clients that are on the look out for such retail outlets.

Case Study For Ethnic marketing of Commercial Real Estate :

One established community is The Greens, in Dubai. This community is a perfect example of a mix of residents, with diverse nationalities and cultural back grounds. The Greens Village is a single storey block situated in picturesque surroundings with retail, fast food and other amenities for the residents. It is indeed a self contained community. What is missing is an Indian food outlet. It takes little imagination to see the success that such a retail outlet would have if opened in this area.

Thus, by carefully looking at the what makes up the fabric of a successful multi cultural community, Developers and Real Estate Marketing Agencies can from the onset of marketing a project, offer potential home buyers and investors added incentive to live or buy commercial property in a project.

We have touched on one area of Ethnic Marketing of Commercial property, do you have any insights, or ideas and examples of how creative ethic marketing of Real Estate can help build a more multi cultural society? We would like to hear from you.