An average Walmart is nothing like the malls I'm talking about. Heck, Carrefour itself already provides everything Walmart does, minus maybe the Walmart money and vision centers.
Imagine putting a Walmart inside of an average US mall. Now crank up the number of stores and activities to 11. That's how major malls in the UAE are like.
I wasn't meaning to imply that Walmart is "good", just that it would tend to suck the life out of similar ventures in the US. Its sort of like how Lowes and Home Depot effectively put Sears onto its last legs.
It isn't exactly that one is a substitute for the other, but one managed to effectively destroy the highest grossing businesses of the other.
Also, I've been in a mall in the US that effectively had a Walmart as an anchor. It was "interesting" and strangely it probably contributed to that mall's competitiveness in the area.
Imagine putting a Walmart inside of an average US mall. Now crank up the number of stores and activities to 11. That's how major malls in the UAE are like.