In just two decades, Dubai has risen from the desert sands to become one of the world’s most recognised destinations. Whether it is the record-breakers such as Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, or the iconic marvel that is Palm Jumeirah, the image of the desert city is one of modernity, a place where cultures mix and souks have evolved into air-conditioned malls – including one of the world’s largest, naturally… With its status as a trading hub, Dubai
has always looked outwards from the barren desert capitalising on a small creek that provided a berthing haven for regional dhow traffic and, while the discovery of oil propelled the emirate into the 20th
century, these finite resources
also focused attention on life after oil. With the foresight of the ruling Al
Maktoum family, the building blocks have been put in place over the past 30 years to enable Dubai to focus on sectors that exploited the geographical advantage of a location between West and East. It was in 1978 that the Dubai World
Trade Centre was built on the orders of HH Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, father of the current ruler, HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
The building at 33 storeys was by far the tallest in the region and perceived as being ‘out in the desert’ at the time with a location on the very fringes of the town. The following year saw the opening of the
Jebel Ali port and free zone, even further away at 35 kilometres from the Dubai Creek. In 1985, Emirates airline was formed with just two aircraft and a launch route from Dubai to Karachi, followed by Bombay and Delhi. By the early 1990s, the airline had already become one of the world’s fastest- growing, a description it continues to live up to as it expands on six continents. With free skies and seas plus free trade as
pillars of development, Dubai quickly became the hub of the region and it is this principle of laissez faire, combined with a ‘can do’ attitude that has served to establish the emirate as a tourist destination, a meeting and exhibition venue, a corporate hub, trade entrepôt, retail emporium and premier location for sports and cultural events. This all seemed a distant dream back
in the early 1980s when the advent of Jumbo jets enabled airlines to overfly the region on their routes between Europe and Asia, bypassing former hubs such as Bahrain that had capitalised on the steady stream of international visitors.
2 Perhaps the secret of success for Dubai
has been daring to dream. Tourism in a war zone was impossible back in the 1990s when the smoke from oil-well fires still permeated the atmosphere in the wake of the first Gulf War, but a decision was made to develop a string of beach hotels along the Jumeirah coast in a bid to tempt winter sunseekers from Europe. In 2003, just months on from the invasion
of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Dubai again surprised the world with the acclaimed hosting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank forum that attracted 16,000 delegates to a destination that was a relative novice in the hosting of events of this scale and had to fast-track infrastructure development to accommodate such large numbers. The rapid development of the city
since then has been well-documented, including the fall from grace during the global recession starting in 2008 when the slump in real-estate values and the debt of government institutions garnered headlines around the world. Despite this, within two years, the scene had been set for the resurgence of Dubai as a tourism and business centre.
3
1 Burj Al Arab 2 Traditional architecture in Bastakiya 3 Dubai Marina
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