Shop til you drop

Tills will be ringing louder than usual during the Johannesburg Shopping Festival, in which several shopping centres and malls are participating.
If shopping is your addiction, there can be no better drug than a festival dedicated entirely to feeding your habit.

The Zone @ RosebankThe Zone @ Rosebank Luckily enough, there’s a week-long extravaganza devoted to those who get a buzz from spending, during which the shops in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs will come alive with the sounds of swiping plastic and ringing tills.

The Johannesburg Shopping Festival, which is part of the Arts Alive International Festival, will run from 17 to 25 September. It will take place at eight participating shopping centres in Rosebank, the inner city and Woodmead, as well as at the Joburg Market and the Bryanston Organic and Natural Market.

They include The Zone @ Rosebank, The Mall of Rosebank, The Firs in Rosebank, Carlton Shopping Centre and Woodmead Retail Park. The shopping festival is a tourism and retail event initiated by the City’s department of economic development in partnership with the travel, retail, logistics and media industries.

Partners this year include South African Airways; freight service U-Bag; six Johannesburg hotels: Don Suite Hotels, Intercontinental, The Peech Hotel, City Lodge Group, Mapungubwe Hotel and The Reef Hotel; and tour operator Welcome Tourism Services.

These partners have collaborated to create a number of packages for shoppers that can be accessed via the Johannesburg Tourism Company website and the Welcome Tourism Services website.

JTC CEO Lindiwe Kwele JTC CEO Lindiwe Kwele is inviting shoppers to a great experience in Joburg “We’re delighted that the City of Johannesburg is continuing to champion a spring shopping festival throughout Joburg and I trust this initiative will grow into a significant Joburg calendar event,” said Johannesburg Tourism’s chief executive officer, Lindiwe Kwele.

Joburg has over 80 shopping centres, easily positioning it as the destination of choice for meeting those shopping needs, and the festival’s objective is to showcase this.

It aims to cement the city’s position as Africa’s premier destination for retail and wholesale shopping, and it highlights the retail infrastructure and services available in Johannesburg to attract more visitors for shopping, entertainment, sightseeing, golfing, spa and medical treatments.

“September is a fabulous month for the Johannesburg Shopping Festival, as Joburg bursts into action on so many levels come springtime,” said Kwele. “Appropriately for tourism month, there are signature and consumer events and festivals galore, along with the usual fabulous array of music, culture, fashion, entertainment, sports and lifestyle events to choose from.”