Dubai transformation: Fast forward to 2012

Visitors will be spoilt for choice for top hotels: perhaps the Palazzo Versace in the Culture Village? Or visit the Armani hotel on the first 37 floors of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai? Or stay at the Atlantis Hotel on the fabulous Palm Island? Or check into Asia-Asia, the world's biggest hotel in the Dubailand theme park? Or try the new Four Seasons at the Dubai Festival City?

Readers from overseas might think this is a list of dreams, but all these hotels are under development today in Dubai. Indeed, by 2012 the high-rise urban clusters of the more than 100 towers at the Dubai Marina and the high-density Dubai Downtown around the Burj Dubai and huge Dubai Mall will also be well established.

Financial capital

Rising on either side of the Dubai Downtown will be the Dubai International Financial Centre and the Business Bay. In fact by 2012 the cranes may still be swinging over these two new commercial districts such is the backlog of construction activity now planned, and the Dubai Creek will flow from the Business Bay through a canal into the sea.

Swirling new inter-sections on the Sheikh Zayed Road will carry the hundred thousand or so new white collar workers to their offices every day, while the second line of the Dubai Metro will be open transforming accessibility across the city.

Out in the hinterland the first phases of the Dubailand theme park will be operational, and nearby labourers will be toiling on the next phases of this huge project that will be as big as metropolitan Dubai when complete. In the middle will sit the City of Arabia with its massive shopping mall and artificial dinosaur park, probably still with some remaining apartment towers under construction.

JXB airport

Further towards Jebel Ali and you will encounter the runways of the second Dubai airport JXB, with several phases open and linked to the greatly enlarged Jebel Ali Free Zone. The Jebel Ali Downtown will also doubtless be starting to emerge from the building sites.

Past the JAFZA and you can head up to the second Palm Island and the Waterfront, massive artificial islands now with villas and apartment buildings sprouting like tiny mushrooms. Also offshore you will see a few hotels dotted across a map of the world formed from artificial islands and the colossal Palm Deira growing larger and larger into the sea.

No other city in the world will have changed more in five years, and to its core trade, logistics and tourism activities Dubai will have added the mantle of regional financial capital. This much we know. But who could have named more than half of the projects mentioned in this article five years ago? So expect the unexpected too!