Regional tourism crown passes to Dubai

Dubai hates to be compared to Las Vegas as the emirate has no gambling, nor any plans to follow Singapore and build a casino. However, the parallel of a desert city being transformed into a tourism landmark holds true.

Amazingly in 2005 Dubai's revenue per hotel guest was the highest in the world at $175, up 42 per cent on 2005 and ahead of Las Vegas despite the absence of the roulette wheel. This factor alone is enough to explain why a spectacular hotel development boom is in progress.

Today Dubai boasts 383 hotels with a capacity of 35,000 rooms. But by the end of 2009 a further 140 hotels with around 34,000 rooms will be open for business, making a total of 79,000.

Government leads

The Dubai Government is leading this development race. The latest addition to the hotel projects in progress is the $27 billion Bawadi project in the Dubailand theme part district which will add 31 hotels and 29,200 rooms over the next decade. This will include, perhaps inevitably, the largest hotel in the world - the 6,500 room Asia-Asia hotel.

Meanwhile, the Dubai Government is in a joint venture with Kerzner International for the 2,000 room Atlantis hotel on the tip of the Palm, Jumeriah, another flagship for the Dubai tourism industry. There are more than 25 other hotels to follow on the crescent of the Palm, Jumeriah alone.

Downtown the Burj Dubai project features an Armani hotel while the Dubai Festival City project has high-rise hotels including the first Four Seasons in Dubai. The Dubailand theme park also has many hotels within its sub-development areas apart from Al Bawadi such as the five and four-star hotels that form part of the massive City of Arabia project.

Global tourism No1

Yet the real progress in the Dubai tourism sector has really been made over the past decade. The emirate was nowhere on the global tourism map 10 years ago with just a limited number of five-star properties. Now Dubai has the highest per capita income from tourism in the world.

In this context doubling the size of the hotel sector in less than four years does not appear such an outlandish proposal. It is a matter of sustaining the flow of investment and continuing to promote the emirate as a holiday destination. The critical mass and attractions of Dubai continue to mushroom with a ski-slope just the latest addition.

In this regard the emirate has been well served by its liberalization of the media sector in 2000 with the creation of the Dubai Media City. It has only been natural for media companies with limited budgets to concentrate on what is happening on their doorstep, and this has brought Dubai to the attention of the world in an unprecedented blaze of publicity.