Abu Dhabi among 'New centres of economic power', says Harvard Business Review

In a research article in its April 2008 issue, two prominent writers said:" With new centres of economic power emerging, companies should also establish themselves in rising metropolises such as Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Abu Dhabi, where prices on the prime real estate will surely climb as demand outpaces availability."

Entitled 'The Tourism Time Bomb', the report has been written by Paul F. Nunes, an executive research fellow with the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business in Boston, and Mark Spelman, the London-based global managing director of Accenture's strategy practices.

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The writers observed: "International travel is no longer the exclusive province of the rich. Over the next several decades, hundreds of millions of new entrants to the middle class will want not only the things—but also the experiences—that money can buy....

They want to see Paris from the Eiffel Tower, relax in the Maldives, and play blackjack in Las Vegas. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, international tourist visits are expected to double soon, from roughly 800 million in 2008 to 1.6 billion by 2020. However, only so many people can visit a particular building or beach in a given year. Where will all the other tourists go?"

They said this skyrocketing demand for travel will lead to a "scarcity of place" and companies and governments are creating facsimiles of popular destinations.

"The Eiffel Tower, for example, can be seen in Las Vegas and at Disney's Epcot Center, not just in Paris. Venice's canals can be enjoyed in Macao, where the Venetian resort and casino has three canals in its $2.4bn, 10.5 million-square-foot complex. And the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, are available for inspection in a meticulously reproduced duplicate 200 meters away from the real thing", they remarked.