Dubai — vacation paradise or gold-plated facade?
By: Eirik Holm Hansen
Tags: Travel, Travel Writing, Dubai, Blog, Corruption

Originally posted at:

In January earlier this year, six Norwegian influencers went on a sponsored luxury trip to Dubai, paid by Norwegian Air Shuttle. Dubai portrays itself as a luxury paradise, with futuristic skyscrapers, gold plated hotels, and beautiful beaches. On the surface, it can seem like a dream travel destination, where everything is possible as long as you have the money. Dubai has in many ways become a stage for displaying the immense wealth of the United Arab Emirates.

This sponsored trip quickly gained attention in the media. The story sparked even more controversy when it came out that state-owned VisitDubai worked together with Norwegian to sponsor the trip and cater to the influencers.

The influencers were criticized for uncritically marketing Dubai on their platforms without using their voice to spread awareness of the human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is known for ultra-conservative laws related to homosexuality, imprisonment of women who report rape and fierce reactions towards citizens who are critical to the regime.

The influencers were fiercely criticized on social media, and I’m not here to add on that. Instead, I would like to tell about my trip to Dubai, and why I believe the country is currently focusing so hard on image building.

Me and my girlfriend went to Dubai just before Christmas last year. Like many others, I was drawn to Dubai because of the amazing architecture, luxury hotels and a hope to get a little touch of the Arab culture. Although I don’t completely disagree with the portrayal of Dubai as a desirable travel destination, we did notice a few things that raised some questions.

Within Dubai’s impressive futuristic skyline, we saw a lot of unfinished real estate projects. In the CBD, surrounding Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Fountain, almost every building looked like it was either in construction, or construction had been stalled for whatever reason. Similarly, the artificial palm-shaped island, Palm Jebel Ali, which was originally planned to be done by 2008, has been on hold ever since.

Our stay at Gevora Hotel was also underwhelming. The hotel opened just a year ago, yet it seemed kind of old, as the interior of the rooms were poorly built. We felt like a few corners had been cut in the making of the hotel, and that’s not a reassuring feeling when you’re sleeping on the 60th floor.

All these impressions left us with the impression that Dubai seemed a little… unfinished. What the spectacular Instagram pictures usually don’t show, are all these unfinished projects. The impressions might have been signs of something greater.

After the trip, I was naturally left with several questions. What hit me, was that a lot of these unfinished projects carried the same name, Emaar. Emaar Properties is the Emirates’ biggest, and one of the world’s most valuable real estate developers, founded and run by the Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar. The UAE government initially owned 100 % of the company. It is now a public joint-stock company, but I suspect the company still has close ties with the government.

What I later discovered was that Emaar Properties is struggling. Their stock prices are down over 40 % the last year, and at its lowest point in 5 years. Due to the size and governmental influence of Emaar Properties, this is a big indicator of the general economic tendencies in Dubai.

I suspect there are close ties between the unfinished projects, the falling Emaar stock price and the surge of influencers currently going to Dubai. Dubai’s economy is largely focused on luxury tourism and real estate. The country has great incentives to stimulate tourism, often using unconventional methods like sponsoring trips to influencers.

Huge investments are currently being made in Dubai, as Dubai is host city of the world expo 2020. The expo is highly anticipated and expected to be crucial for Dubai’s image. As Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of Dubai, said: “We renew our promise to astonish the world in 2020”.

The image Dubai of seems artificial, where bigger is better and more gold is what matters. The government, and the closely connected developer, Emaar, attempt to create a facade in front the country’s deep human rights problems and poor economical tendencies. Maybe they are betting on the world expo’s impact to renew or rather revive their image?

In the meanwhile, they are desperate to spark economic growth and work on their image as a desirable travel destination. As they are heavily reliant on tourists the current focus is on driving tourism through companies like VisitDubai and sponsorships. Dubai certainly has a lot to offer tourists, and will probably remain and relatively attractive travel destination. In terms of the human rights situation, and the tendencies I through this blog post has attempted to shed a light on, I do think there is value in awareness, and in seeing the relations between events.