Balloons to visit Dubai

Balloon festival in Dubai Posted: Saturday, May 06, 2006

Dubai


The International Balloon Festival is taking over Dubai’s skies for the first time this year as an official Dubai Shopping Festival event.

Details of the event were laid out by Mohammad Khammas, CEO of Al Ahli Group and the Dubai Balloon Festival (DBF), during the 2006 Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
Investment in the festival, to be held over two weekends, has touched Dh15 million and Khammas promised it will be the biggest in the world outside the US.
The project is a joint venture of the Al Ahli Group and ETA-Ascon. The official site of the DBF will be Dubailand and will be held in December.
The event is funded by the $3 billion ETA-Ascon Group and brought to the UAE by DBF.
Organising the event will be a team from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Inc of New Mexico, where the festival has been held for more than 34 years.
The festival features at least 100 multi-coloured hot air balloons with pilots displaying their skills in order to entertain the public, who in turn will get a chance to experience the ride.
'We hope to replicate the festival in Albuquerque and turn DBF into an annual event. People in Dubai always expect the biggest and the best and that’s what we will give them,' said Khammas.