DESERT FANTASIES - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 120

enough about all of its over-the-top milestones and uninhibited night scene. Russians and
Germans, Italians and Brits, Indians and Chinese, Saudis and Iranians, and Afghanis from
both sides of the war come to Dubai to relax. The beaches are cosmopolitan, with women
wearing bikinis. The golf courses, horse races, car races, sports stadiums, and film festivals
bring in celebrities from around the world, often for a fee. Restaurants serve every cuisine
imaginable.
All of this was built in a few decades, at warp speed. Everything was imported: from
the people and the materials to the culture filling up the new museums in neighboring
Abu Dhabi. Cost was no object: this air-conditioned desert fantasy requires more energy
use per person than any other spot on the globe. Understandably, Dubai was considered
a one-off original, too bizarre to be duplicated. That assessment proved totally and com-
pletely wrong. Today, Dubai is considered a model for tourism in the twenty-first century.
Its neighbors in the Gulf region are trying to duplicate its success, even the conservative
rulers of Saudi Arabia, who are vamping up the Hajj with glitter and high-end resorts. For-
eign delegations visit to take notes. Only China has garnered more accolades for its attrac-
tions. The elite World Travel & Tourism Council gives Dubai credit for breaking open the
Middle East tourist market as “one of the world's leading case examples of an economy
which has positioned Travel & Tourism as a strategic priority for long-term development
and prosperity.”
The success of Dubai, though, is more prosaic, and basic. First, in a region drenched
with oil money, Dubai (and to a lesser extent its neighbor Abu Dhabi) has staked its for-
tune on tourism—a sign, if we needed one, that tourism is the globe's stealth top industry.
Second, and most important, this Middle Eastern emirate is a rare bare-bones example
of what the industry of tourism looks like unfettered. Few if any major tourist spots have
been built solely and entirely as a business. Here the tourist or traveler is treated like a
consumer. None of the folderol about finding oneself or disappearing from the troubled
world to discover anew the beauty of Mother Nature or the wisdom of an exotic culture.
Examining the tourism industry in Dubai is like looking at the engine of a fancy sports
car with its hood off. The parts are all there to see as well as the dynamic of what keeps
the motor humming. A journey through Dubai—and Abu Dhabi—is a practical course in
tourism and its future. It is a pretty frightening one, too.
This is made possible because Dubai is a monarchy, one of the seven emirates in the
loose federation of the United Arab Emirates. Officially the UAE is a constitutional mon-
archy but without universal suffrage or full democratic elections. (Less than 10 percent
of the citizens are allowed to vote or run for office and these are chosen by the sheikhs.)
This means the sheiks and royal families are free to run their emirates more or less as they
wish. They appoint their advisors and members of their councils and legislative bodies;
they have the effective say over what laws and regulations are passed. The citizens of Dubai
are more like subjects, but very well-paid subjects. The saying goes that with the UAE's