Dubai draws tourists amid Covid curbs

Dubai – As much of the world tightens lockdowns to stem coronavirus, Dubai has flung its doors open, branding itself as a sunny, quarantine-free escape – despite a sharp rise in cases.

While mask-wearing and social distancing are strictly enforced, life in the tourism-reliant emirate looks much like normal, with its restaurants, hotels and mega-malls open for business.

Emirates, which restored its network to about three quarters of pre-pandemic levels, is again operating A380 super-jumbos – the world’s largest commercial airliner – ferrying in visitors from Britain and Russia.

Russian tourist Dmitriy Melnikov said he came to Dubai because his choices were otherwise limited, with many destinations in partial or full lockdown.

“I am not scared,” he said. “If you look at people here, everyone has a mask, and I think it’s cool.”

But the downside to becoming one of the world’s most open destinations has been a sharp rise in coronavirus cases.

Daily detected cases hover in the mid-3 000 across the United Arab Emirates, which has a population of under 10 million, with 745 deaths from Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

“There are significant risks in Dubai remaining so open,” said Scott Livermore, chief economist at Oxford Economics Middle East.

“A renewed outbreak of Covid-19 would set the recovery back quite some way.”

With a negative PCR test in their home countries, tourists can freely enter Dubai, where winter temperatures average a pleasant 25°C.

The neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi, which, with large oil reserves, is less dependent on tourism, has taken a more conservative approach, generally requiring quarantine on arrival.

In the al-Fahidi historical neighbourhood in Dubai, mask-clad tourists walk through alleyways, taking pictures of the recreation of life a century ago.

Hand sanitisers and floor stickers warning people to maintain their distance are everywhere, while most restaurants have replaced their menus with digital QR barcodes, that can be displayed on a smartphone.

“Before the coronavirus, tour groups were up to 100 or 250 visitors with each tour guide, but now things are different, only 20 visitors maximum for each tour guide,” said the district’s director Nasser Juma bin Sulaiman. –