KidzMondo Doha is one of the newest arrivals in the Middle East market. The kid-size edutainment city debuted at the Mall of Qatar in December 2016.
KidzMondo is owned by Kidz Holding S.A.L., a company founded and chaired by Lebanese entrepreneur Ali Kazma. Kidz Holding awarded the franchise to open KidzMondo Doha to Aura Entertainment, a regional company specializing in developing international fashion and lifestyle brands in the GCC.
“Countless hours of painstaking research, development, and hard work led to the opening of KidzMondo Doha in Qatar, our third KidzMondo theme park following the first in Beirut and Istanbul in Turkey,” says Manal Ghosh Roachford, marketing manager at KidzMondo Doha.
The development is part of an expansion plan to take the KidzMondo brand to cities worldwide. KidzMondo Abu Dhabi is opening soon, with further sites planned in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Russia. A KidzMondo city in Melbourne, Australia, is also in the cards.
“KidzMondo Doha is a $25 million FEC project led by a highly qualified team of more than 115 educators,” says Ghosh Roachford. It provides a fun learning environment for children aged 2-14 years old. “We expect more than 150,000 children to visit our edutainment city per year,” says Ghosh Roachford. Nearly 800 children can enjoy the facility at any one time.
KidzMondo Doha spans around 8,000 square meters. It replicates the real world, with its own currency, constitution, economy, and functioning infrastructure. “We made sure that our progressive edutainment concept was in perfect harmony with the country’s unique identity, deep-rooted values, and local culture,” says Ghosh Roachford. Customized products with a Qatari flavor were developed for the theme park. “The oil refinery activity is an example of the cultural adaptation we always seek to create wherever we travel with the KidzMondo concept,” she says.
“We designed the city’s 60 establishments in KidzMondo Doha in collaboration with leading brands that people can relate to,” adds Ghosh Roachford. These include Qatar Airways, Qatar International Islamic Bank, and telecommunications provider Ooredoo. The role-play activities contribute to the Qatar National Vision 2030 and its goal of building a knowledge-based society.
The KidzMondo team are devoted to developing “FECs that are innovative, purposeful, and profitable,” says Ghosh Roachford.