The price of marriage in Dubai

When Adam Taylor tied the knot with his fiancée Tanya in October last year, he embraced marriage far more wholeheartedly than most grooms.

The couple said "I do" in a picture-postcard event in the grounds of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Dubai, the city where they met back in 1996. The day was a great success, but Adam was shocked both by how difficult it had been to organize - and by the meteoric growth he was witnessing in Dubai's nascent wedding industry.

He spotted a niche in the market, ditched his sales and marketing job along with his single life, and launched the Wedding Shop. "I just thought there was an opening," says Taylor. "I've done some market research, and it all points to a phenomenal growth market."

Taylor is not alone. Across Dubai, the wedding industry is one of the fastest growing areas within the emirate's thriving leisure and tourism
sector. The market for UAE national weddings remains stable; it is demand from expats that is soaring. "More and more people are getting married in Dubai," says Amit Arora, director of sales at the Ritz-Carlton Dubai. "It has pretty much grown over the past two to three years. Before that, expats didn't really get married in Dubai; people went home to get married. Today, it's very different."

What's driving this trend? Two explanations crop up time and again. First, the emergence of idyllic, seashore wedding venues. Second, Dubai's expat community is not only growing, it's changing.

As elsewhere in Dubai's tourism sector, the economics of the wedding industry are founded on the concept of supply-led demand. Or, in layman's terms, "build it and they will come." Until the late 1990s, Dubai couldn't offer couples a wedding venue that was truly breathtaking. The city was home to a number of luxury beach hotels, but none had the "wow" factor that made brides fall in love with the idea of getting married there. As such, the vast majority of expats chose to return home, mainly to Europe or India.

All that changed in 2000 with the opening of the Royal Mirage. Suddenly, Dubai had a wedding venue that was genuinely spectacular. The hotel's lavish architecture (it is built in the style of a Moroccan palace) provided a landmark backdrop for ceremonies and receptions. The following year, the neighboring Ritz-Carlton invested heavily in a network of landscaped gardens that quickly established the hotel as a definitive wedding location.

"Look at the fantastic hotels in this city," says Geoffrey Ryan, catering director at the Royal Mirage. "You have the weather, and you have these amazing locations. It's a bride's dream."
Weddings, though, are about much more than bricks and mortar; they are about people. And it is the changing face of Dubai's expat community that is the real driving force behind this emerging trend. "Expats are starting to live here a little bit longer," explains the Wedding Shop's Adam Taylor. "And they are younger when they come out here."

Amit Arora of the Ritz-Carlton agrees that demographics are a significant force. "The expatriate community is a lot less transient than it used to be. Until recently, people used to come for a two-year posting and then move on. Now people are making their home here - so they feel much more comfortable getting married in Dubai."

Furthermore, Dubai is finally becoming a cultural melting pot. The city has always been home to a diverse range of nationalities, but traditionally each community kept itself to itself. Those barriers are now crumbling, leading to a steady rise in cross-cultural weddings. "When that's the case, it makes much more sense to get married on neutral turf. You avoid upsetting one side of the family," says Taylor. "I'm English, but Tanya's from Canada, so it made perfect sense to get married here in Dubai."

Quantifying Dubai's wedding industry is tricky. No real market research exists. Industry players rely on a combination of anecdotal evidence and gut instinct. However, the explosive growth of the Gulf's main wedding industry exhibition, "Bride," offers some insight.

"Demand is just surging," says Anju Sarin, business development manager at exhibition organizer Dialogue. "There are so many stage-makers, dress designers and wedding organizers now, and the hotel industry has grown. This year, for the first time, we had reporters from the business section of newspapers covering the exhibition."

Some statistics: Bride 2003 attracted 197 exhibitors, 20 percent more than last year. That followed an impressive 100 percent leap in 2002, after the event was moved from a Dubai hotel to the cavernous Dubai World Trade Center to soak up soaring demand. So far, all indicators suggest Bride 2004 will be bigger still. "This year we had 19 fashion shows from dress designers," says Anju. "All our fashion show slots for next year are already booked."

Crucially for hotels, Dubai's wedding industry has proved "war-proof." Dubai hotel revenues - particularly on the conference and banqueting side - were decimated in March and April this year during the US-led war in Iraq. Corporate clients cancelled virtually everything, but wedding bookings held firm.

"Weddings are definitely our most reliable piece of business," says Geoffrey Ryan of the Royal Mirage. "People continued regardless of the recent turmoil. In the corporate sector, almost everything was postponed. But I don't think we had one wedding cancelled, albeit with slightly reduced numbers."

Amit Arora of the Ritz-Carlton paints a similar picture. "We had two weddings a week; they really kept us above water." In April, 75 percent of banqueting revenues at the hotel came from weddings. In the same month last year, weddings accounted for just 25 percent.

Is Dubai's expat wedding market here to stay, or just another passing fad? Industry insiders are confident the former is true, and there's no shortage of evidence to support their optimism: the expat community is still growing, Dubai is cheaper than many European destinations and - perhaps most exciting of all - wedding tourism is beginning to take hold.

The forecast growth of Dubai's expatriate community requires little introduction. The government hopes the emirate will double in size by 2010, to 2 million people. Crucially, Dubai hopes to attract middle-class expat professionals in well-paid sectors such as finance, health care, information technology and media.

Today, a lavish beach hotel wedding is beyond the means of the vast majority of Dubai's largely Asian expatriate community. But if the city's demographic profile evolves as predicted by Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (and he's been proved right before), demand for five-star weddings will surely surge.
Price competition is critical.

The likes of the Royal Mirage and the Ritz-Carlton mainly target salaried, middle-class Asian and Western expats. This is far from a "money-no-object" market. Hoteliers know this. They also know they are competing with hotels thousands of miles away, as well as with each other.

Take the British market. British expats can either fly home and get married there, or fly out friends and family from Britain to Dubai. As such, Dubai's hotels not only have to be cheaper than their British counterparts; they have to be significantly cheaper, because the bride and groom often have to pay for a number of flights.

"A wedding in the UK is extremely expensive, and you have to book years in advance," says Amit Arora of the Ritz-Carlton. "In Dubai, you get so much more value for each dollar. And you've got guaranteed sunshine. The price of flights to Dubai has come down, and it's very convenient from Europe. Friends and family come over and make it a week's holiday."

Increasing competitive pressure from the domestic market should keep prices in check. Today, the Royal Mirage and the Ritz-Carlton enjoy a virtual duopoly in Dubai's beach hotel wedding market, but in 2005 the Palm Island opens for business, home to 48 new hotels, each with an alluring beach location.

Dubai's hoteliers hope an increase in wedding tourism will at least partly offset this supply glut. For decades, Europe-based couples have flown overseas to get married in exotic locations. Las Vegas, Hawaii, the Caribbean and Cyprus rank among the favorites. So far, Dubai has only scratched the surface of this market, but the city's wedding industry is beginning to actively target wedding tourism.

"I've just come off the phone with a German couple," says Geoffrey Ryan of the Royal Mirage. "They wanted the wedding package details. Where are they learning about the Royal Mirage? I'm not actively targeting the overseas wedding market at the moment: it is mainly word of mouth in Dubai. But I'll certainly be looking into what are best channels for marketing to these people."

For an entrepreneur like Adam Taylor, wedding tourism is the real growth market. "Business is already good at the existing hotels, but then you have Palm Island opening up. That's a prime location, with some prime venues for weddings. I can see Dubai being the new Cyprus."

Crucially, the wedding industry in Dubai appears to be in the grip of a virtuous circle. The supply of high-quality hotel venues - and wedding services - is stimulating demand, while increased demand is stimulating better supply. Adam Taylor's entrepreneurial venture is a prime example. The wedding industry in Dubai is reaching the critical mass needed to sustain a business such as the Wedding Shop - and the presence of operations like the Wedding Shop will encourage more people to marry in Dubai.

More ventures like this seem likely: Taylor got the idea after enduring a horrendous few months trying to find high-quality accessories such as invitations, table decorations and suit rentals. "There are things you just could not source here, no matter how hard you looked," says Taylor. Not any more.

Today, Dubai's wedding industry is reaching a level of sophistication that allows it to target the international market. Wedding bells may not yet be ringing around Dubai - but the sound of cash registers certainly is.