Welcome to StepstoDubai.com
Your step-by-step guide to Dubai
It has spectacular beaches but it is not Australia; it is one of the world’s most secure destinations but it is not Singapore; it has opulent city hotels and superb beachside resorts but is neither Jakarta nor Bali. It has world class shopping but is not Hong Kong.
Welcome to Dubai, city of merchants, cultural crossroads, second largest of the seven United Arab Emirates. Dubai Arab Emirates is a country where the dust of the desert is clearing to reveal the potential for one of the most significant international cities of the 21st century. Yes, Dubai construction is well under way.
The Dubai World is wedged between Europe and Asia, buttressed by Africa. Dubai’s encouraging tax regimes, state-of-the-art telecommunications and sympathetic business environment have produced a country that is building energetically on the advantages which location, centuries-old trading savvy and oil wealth have given it.
Dubai is not just a city of excitement. It’s also a city of surprises. Check out the Dubai tallest towers. Try the ice skating rink in the Galleria shopping mall at the Hyatt Regency, where young men wearing traditional dish dash dress pirouette around the ice while their friends consume French pastries and coffee at Frosty’s cafe.
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The magnificently-manicured, lush and green golf courses. The Irish Village at the Dubai Tennis Centre. Red telephone boxes which once brightened the British streetscape have found a home in Dubai.
So, too, has the world’s richest horse race, Dubai World Cup, a dream released by HH General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Minister of Defence UAE. The race draws the best thoroughbred horses from America, Europe, Australia and Asia and races them at the Nad Al Sheba course alongside the UAE’s best.
But it’s not just horses which move quickly in Dubai. The cars hurtling past the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, on the road to the exclusive Jumeira residential area, and beyond to Abu Dhabi, include a high proportion of current model Mercedes Benz and Toyota Land Cruisers. |
These rich men’s cars should not be taken as evidence that it is frittering away its oil wealth on expensive toys. The oil is due to run out soon but Dubai long ago began the task of diversifying its economy to soften the impact of diminishing oil revenues on future generations.
Tourism is now an important part of the government’s strategy to maintain the flow of foreign dollars into the emirate. “Dubai’s attraction” says Patrick Macdonald, deputy chief executive of the Dubai Commerce and Tourism Promotion Board, is that it provides an Arabian experience in a very comfortable, safe and tolerant society. |
