IT’S A ROOM with a view, for sure — just not a very pretty one. To my right
are cranes, lots of them. It’s difficult to count them in the heat haze, but
I get to about 20, each hanging over half-built, Benidorm-style apartments
on a stretch of land jutting out to sea.
To my left are yet more cranes and a gigantic pit of a building site, where a
hotel is about to sprout. Yellow diggers are churning earth and beeping as
they reverse. Directly below is a dusty lot in which a dozen giant cable
spools and old coils of wire are scattered, looking like some kind of
post-modern abstract art.
Dubai, as any visitor to the fastest-growing tourist destination in the world
soon discovers, is a land of cranes . . . and statistics.
A few stats — and you can’t escape them, they’re beaming down at you from
giant billboards along its highways — give you a sense of exactly how fast
this emirate, one of seven within the United Arab Emirates, is growing.
For a start, the cranes. This may not be on the billboards, but Dubai is
estimated to have a quarter of the world’s cranes. That’s why almost
everywhere you look is similar to the view from my room on the 19th floor of
the new, flashy, five-star Grosvenor House hotel, part of the new (and
half-built) Dubai Marina development.
Then there’s the coastline. At the moment, Dubai’s coastline is 70km (43
miles). But on completion of a series of six projects designed to create
vast artificial islands in dramatic shapes — one of these projects, the
World, will look from above as if it is a map of the world — the area of
seafront land will be 1,500km long.
These islands will eventually be covered with apartments and hotels, helping
to sustain the plans of Sheikh Muhammad, the ruler of Dubai, to let tourism
replace the emirate’s dwindling oil reserves as the driving force of the
economy. Already oil accounts for just 6 per cent of Dubai’s GDP, while
tourism is 32 per cent.
I visit “Britain” (we land near “Liverpool” on a very un-Liverpool-like,
incredibly hot stretch of sand) with a PR man from the World and the
photographer Doug McKinlay. We have brought a Union Jack to mess about with
and plan to take pictures “claiming” the UK.
“Richard Branson already did that, when the Virgin Atlantic flights began
earlier this year,” says the PR man, who is from Birmingham, laughing as we
fail to get our flag to stay up. “He brought an English telephone box as
well.”
How much would it cost to buy Britain? “It’s about £15 million. That’s just
for the land. Then you’ve got to build on it.”
He adds: “Britain is actually bigger than France . . . it’s a bargain!” Other
projects include the world’s tallest building, which will have a hotel
designed by Giorgio Armani. It will be 700m (2,300ft) high, the centrepiece
of a project called Downtown Dubai, which, a spokeswoman tells me, will be
“the Manhattan of the Middle East”.
There will be more than 160 floors — a floor is being added every three days,
such is the pace of work. At night, lights on the tower block — like so many
others around it — beam as “guest workers”, mainly from India and Pakistan,
burn the midnight oil.
Other “world’s biggests” include: biggest mall (which will be part of Downtown
Dubai), biggest aquarium (which will be in the mall), and biggest airport.
The latter will be called Jebel Ali airport and it will be twice the size of
Heathrow and Chicago’s O’Hare combined, handling up to 120 million
passengers a year (Heathrow manages 68 million) and opening its “first
phase” next year.
To put this growth in perspective, yet more stats: numbers of visitors to the
emirate have more than tripled in the past ten years to 6,160,000 last year.
This figure is expected to reach 15 million by 2010. At present Britons make
up about 11 per cent of visitors, more than from any other country. Many
come to stay at the big five-star resort hotels, though others drop by on
stopovers to Asia and Australia: the average length of stay per visitor is
2.8 days.
I meet Hamad Mohammed bin Mejren, who heads the “inward missions” section of
the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. He is wearing a dishdash
robe and a Rolex, sitting in an air-conditioned office high in a tower
overlooking Dubai Creek.
He shows me a sepia picture of Dubai taken in the 1950s. It’s staggering. On
the bend of the creek where we are now is a scattering of low-level
buildings beyond which are vast stretches of empty desert.
After lighting a cigarette, he keeps the stats flowing. “Then we were a small
trading and fishing port with a population of 5,000-6,000. Now we have a
population of 1.4 million. Of course, everything began to change when oil
was discovered in 1967. But commerce has always been in our blood. People
who lived here were always merchants. This was an important trading post.”
In 2002 property rules changed in Dubai to allow overseas ownership. Many
Brits are among the first to move in this November to The Palm, Jumeirah,
one of six islands being built on reclaimed land. It is shaped like a giant
palm tree, with fronds on which villas look on to white sand beaches.
Premiership footballers are among the buyers — and include the Beckhams,
Michael Owen and Gary Neville. One hotelier, who asked not to be identified,
said: “The Beckhams are almost permanent fixtures in the Burj Al Arab.”
This is a self-proclaimed seven-star hotel, the tallest in the world, with
rooms from £1,000 a night. To my eyes it looks rather ugly, like a big white
cockroach. But footballers love it. “Rooney’s there right now, with Coleen.
It’s because he’s got a three-match ban (for violent conduct),” said the
hotelier.
Given all the construction, can you enjoy Dubai? I found the sheer scale of
change fascinating, as though we were visiting the Pyramids during the early
days of the Pharaohs.
But there are a few stark facts. Guest workers get paid as little as £100 a
month and are often housed six to a room. There are no elections. I mention
this to a guide. “Who needs them? We have a good leader,” he says. Most of
the people I talked to, like the hotelier, feared being quoted, saying
things such as “this is a very small place, you know”.
Prostitution is not uncommon — witness the numbers of tall, blonde, Russian
women standing alone in trendy nightspots — and homosexuality is illegal.
There are severe traffic jams. Roads and infrastructure have yet to match
the growth in buildings, although a metro is planned to be ready in 2011.
But then, most people don’t seem to leave their hotels much. “Why would we?”
says Karen Parker, 35, from Stoke on Trent, whom I meet by the Royal
Meridien pool. “We’ve got great food, great beaches, great service. You’re
treated like royalty. It’s heaven.”
Shut out the cranes — and a few other matters — and, I suppose, she’s right.
DUBAI LATEST
Hottest hotels
The Grosvenor House (00 971 4 399 8888, www.grosvenorhouse-dubai.com) is
ultra-slick, with terrific sushi, Indian and modern French restaurants. The
top floor bar, Bar 44, buzzes with the Dubai in-crowd at weekends, as does
the Buddha Bar, a trendy sushi and drinks joint in the basement — worth
visiting even if you’re not a guest. Rooms are plush and chic, with lots of
marble. B&B doubles from £325.
Alternatively, the Madinat Jumeirah (366 8888, www.madinatjumeirah.com) is
styled on an Arabian citadel with a low-level rose-red building set around
waterways by a white sand beach. There are several restaurants, a
traditional souk and a marvellous series of sculptures of galloping golden
horses leading to the entrance. Doubles from £408.
Safaris and souks
Alpha Tours (00 971 4 294 9888, www.alphatoursdubai.com) arranges desert
safaris with a barbecue meal, camel rides and belly dancing included. From
£38 for six hours. City tours taking in the gold and spice souks, mosques
and palaces cost £17 for four hours.
Desert skiing
Ski Dubai (www.skidxb.com) is an almost unbelievable 400m indoor ski slope in
the Mall of the Emirates, the world’s second biggest shopping mall. Many
locals have never seen snow and it’s worth going just to see their
reactions. No reservation needed; £20 for two hours.
Golf in the gulf
Emirates Golf Club (380 2222, www.dubaigolf.com) is the top golf course in
Dubai, holding the Dubai Desert Classic each year — Tiger Woods is the
current champion. Rounds from £84.
Inside track
Time Out Dubai (www.timeoutdubai.com) is a useful local listings
magazine.
Into the future
The big developers include Emaar (www.emaar.com), Nakheel (www.nakheel.com),
Dubai Festival City (www.dubaifestivalcity.com) and Dubailand
(www.dubailand.ae).
Getting there
Virgin Holidays (0871 2220307, www.virginholidays.co.uk) has a week’s B&B
at the four-star Oasis Beach Hotel from £689. Thomas Cook Signature (0870
4434481, www.tcsignature.com) has a week’s B&B at the five-star
Jumeirah Beach Hotel from £1,376.
Tom Chesshyre travelled to Dubai with the Dubai Department of Tourism and
Commerce Marketing (020- 7839 0580, www.dubaitourism.ae). He flew
with Virgin Atlantic (0870 5747747, www.virginatlantic.com), which
has return flights from Heathrow to Dubai for £278.40.
