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Dubai a star in the east.

A critical discussion on the development of Dubai

The following essay, if not declared else, is based on the article of Balakrishnan (2008) and the key learnings brought back home from the Study Tour with a five nights stopover in Dubai. Dubai is an emirate of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the Middle East. As one of the worlds fastest growing economies, Dubai is worldwide known as the city of superlatives. The worlds: first 7 star hotel, highest building (Burj Khalifa), first underwater hotel, largest man-made marina and largest airport (Jebel-Ali) are just a small selection of the world records placed in Dubai. The growth of Dubai is rapid, overwhelming and frightening at the same time - one could question at this point, if this is a sustainable and well-thought growth for a destination. From a sleepy fishing and pearl diving village Dubai transformed into a Global City, well known as one of the most important hub-destinations in the Middle East.

The location of Dubai is strategically valuable to a tourism destination. Two thirds of the world population lives within an eight-hours flight radius around Dubai. Within the 2015 Strategic Plan, Dubai was focusing on tourism, trade, construction and financial services as key economic drivers. Furthermore, lifestyle and shopping play an important role for the development of Dubai. The rapid pace development initially was fueled by oil, which nowadays counts only 6% of the overall GDP (Abu Dhabi: 56,1% in 2012). In the article, leadership in combination with a great vision are mentioned as advantages for Dubai.
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Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum is seen as a visionary with great plans for the future of Dubai. He and the leading family are visible all over the city and this gives a sense of the role within the destination and how important these men are for the development of Dubai. When asking a critical question at the DTCM (Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing), namely, what will happen if the next leader/sheikh will be more conservative and not willing to develop Dubai in such a way further? the answer has just been a little smile accompanied with that will not happen. For the author, such an intense focus on and influence from one person/family can be a real threat, when thinking of the future. Some disadvantages Dubai is facing are for example the distorted history (connection to 9/11), high percentage of expatriates (85%) and possible security issues at the tourist-residents proportion of 4:1. From the perspective of a tourist I could not confirm any of these issues. The city seemed very welcoming and secure to me at every stage of our journey. When hearing about the amount of expatriates in Dubai first, I was shocked because when comparing the political issues and discussions Austria faces due to this topic, this would mean chaos for us. Therefore I was very curious about how this can work and to my surprise it seems to work perfectly. Even if in the article it is mentioned that expatriates are very much disadvantaged compared to nationals I never could get this feeling from anybody we met. Of course, this is not easy to find out within a short stay like this but I think if there is any rumor about this topic they on the one hand can handle it very well and on the other hand do not affect tourists at all, which is praiseworthy. As the government of Dubai is working on the issue to equate the welfare of residents to nationals, this seems like a step in the right direction and can be mentioned as valuable too. A further disadvantage

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mentioned is nepotism, which occurs in the whole destination, I personally think that this is the case in many countries and cannot be prevented easily. Differentiation is seen as a basis for the branding of a destination. In my viewpoint this is one of the biggest challenges for Dubai. At the moment rapid growth and world records are the major things the destination is differentiating itself the most. However, this strategy is not very much sustainable for a destination because these are short-lived differentiators that do not save for the future. In the article the advice to create something more tangible and concrete is named, which I can sympathize with. Furthermore the rapid growth of Dubai can be seen as a threat because the destination has no chance to learn from the mistakes made. As a visitor to the destination I often had exactly that feeling. The mentality of the residents of Dubai is to praise the development without mentioning any word about mistakes, failures or weaknesses. For example when going by train to The Palm, in the train station we could experience ourselves that simply nobody, besides us and some Chinese tourists, were visiting The Palm. However, the train station was built to handle some thousand visitors a day and for us it was simply frightening, because it seemed somehow deserted. Furthermore our tour-guide mentioned The World Islands as a great success, but as we heard this prestige-project simply was a letdown. This mentality of beautifying the reality can be nice for residents but for me it is another threat for Dubai, because in order to compete, one has to learn from his mistakes and improve himself which is not possible if a failure is just ignored. For a destination this blindness can cause wrong decisions, projects and an insecure future. According to the article an image is one key factor for the branding process. This is another field Dubai has to work on because the emotion transported by the destination is one of the success drivers in branding. However,

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Dubai has difficulties to communicate a consistent image and therefore emotion about the destination. It is associated with too many images, which causes confusion for the observer.

Dubai simply impressed me everyday in a new way and showed me how diverse a destination can be. Decadence and superlatives were tangible on every step we made. Unfortunately Dubai has this lack of a clear image and offers not much besides, the best, fastest, highest, which is becoming boring after some time. For me Dubai has a great potential and can really become a Global City when starting to honestly asking themselves who they are or want to be. The cultural heritage and history of this city are very impressive and can catch a lot of attention if staged well. Welcoming visitors in a truly natural atmosphere is easier than showing-off and playing a role every day. The fact that the word impossible does not exist in their language sounds impressing but can also be a threat as mentioned before. Projects and future plans should be planned and thought well before just rushing out to do anything. To sum this up, Dubai surprised and impressed me very much and I hope that this destination will find itself because then their success will exceed further.

Literature
Balakrishnan, M.S. (2008): Dubai a star in the east. A case study in strategic destination branding. Journal of Place Management and Development, 1(1), 62-91.

Alexandra Rohrmoser