A BURSTON business is helping to shape plans for the world's biggest theme park - the £3.5bn Dubailand in the Middle East. Vivid Interface, a research agency, has been appointed to conduct potential visitor research for Dubailand, an ambitious development under construc-tion in open desert in Dubai.

Comprising 45 separate projects, Dubailand will include the biggest shopping mall in the world, several five-star hotels, an indoor ski-slope, a complex of sports stadiums and an ecological dome. There will also be an equestrian centre, aviation display, space centre, modern art gallery, water amusement park, multicultural garden complex, a zoo and even re-creations of famous sites such as the pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower.

On completion in 2020, Dubailand will be twice the size of Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Geoffrey Dixon, managing director of Vivid Interface, said: “Although we are based at Burston in rural south Norfolk, we have a client base that is anything but local. We have a number of contracts overseas, as well as throughout the UK, but our biggest current project is Dubailand. “There is nowhere like Dubai and when they do something they tend to do it well and on a grand scale. Dubailand will be the largest theme park development in the world and presents us with significant challenges.

“We are conducting potential visitor research among the nationals of 16 'major source markets'. “We need to understand the optimum delivery package for people from countries as culturally far apart as Saudi Arabia, the UK, Iran, the Philippines, China and Germany.”

Mr Dixon said that Vivid Interface's international projects were no different in concept to work his firm had done locally for clients such as Blue Sky Leisure, The Forum and Norfolk Chamber of Commerce.

“Our job is to find out how to optimise the delivery of a product - no matter what it is. We do this by developing an understanding of the markets and the segments within the markets. In the case of Dubailand the job is just made more complex because of the different cultures and the languages.”

Vivid Interface, which has 12 staff at Burston and a further 120 around the UK, works in a number of markets and specialises in tourism, events and exhibitions, media and automotive.