Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
discovery of oil in the 1960s, every soul in that stretch of sand hit the lottery for life. The
oil wealth of the UAE means there are no taxes, no duties, free housing and subsidized
utilities for most citizens.
There is the rub. There are very few Emiratis. Most of the people living and working in
Dubai are foreigners—at least 85 percent of the working population in a country of over 3
million people. Foreigners run Dubai—the airlines and hotels, the consultancies and the
banks. Yet they all live there on temporary visas with no political rights to speak of and no
official say in government decisions. The foreign workers at the bottom rung are famously
deprived of nearly all their rights. They are brought in from the poorer communities of
South Asia and live in labor camps under conditions that would be illegal in most coun-
tries. Experts believe that this very cheap foreign labor was as important as oil wealth in
underwriting Dubai's growth as an international tourist attraction.
Citizens without votes and foreigners without rights leave the sheikhs in charge to or-
ganize Dubai without fear of protests or popular backlash, lawsuits or sit-ins. There are no
political parties to contend with or to protest the extravagance that requires the highest wa-
ter consumption per person in the world and some pretty awful sewage disposal that has
polluted or destroyed many of the beaches. No independent citizen groups exist to halt
construction that threatens the environment or to protest the sound of jets flying in at all
hours of the night; no labor unions to demand better pay and living conditions; no inde-
pendent experts to impose regulations on those skyscrapers.
Dubai's leader, Sheikh Mohammed, of the ruling Al-Maktoum family, has taken full
advantage of the circumstances to push the business of his emirate. In a 2007 Newsweek
interview he described himself as the “C.E.O.” of Dubai. He has won praise from business
groups for his dedication to efficiency and growth. When the global economic meltdown
brought Dubai to its knees in 2009, its high-flying status seemed doomed even after Abu
Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven emirates in the UAE, bailed out Dubai with loans of
over $10 billion. Yet, while the rest of the world struggles, Dubai has rebounded, welcom-
ing millions of tourists again—three times as many foreigners as New York City. At the end
of 2010, Dubai's most expensive hotels were full during the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr
and, again, for New Year's Eve.
One reason is location. Dubai is an oasis of conspicuous consumption on the edge of
a region simmering in conflict. Taliban commanders from Afghanistan have been known
to disappear to Dubai for a break. During the Arab Spring, when dictatorships were being
challenged throughout North Africa, the Dubai hotels were filling up again with both the
citizens of the countries of the Arab Spring and the tourists who normally visited the Pyr-
amids of Egypt or the beaches of Tunisia.
So that missing sense of place that I felt that first night is all part of the business plan. In
Dubai you could be anywhere and nowhere. It is a playground for tourists, after all. And
wasting resources and calculating the cost to the environment isn't part of the spread sheet
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