The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Dubai Shopping, skiing (really), safari (ditto)? The desert city-state has got the lot – and more
HERE’S a quick fact: Dubai has nearly 100 shopping malls. Ninety-six, to be exact. Not bad for a city-state with a population of 2.7 million. But then Dubai is one of the most visited cities on earth. Last year, it attracted 15.27 million international overnight visitors – comfortably more than New York and behind only Bangkok, London and Paris in the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index. And global visitors spent more in Dubai than anywhere else. Mastercard estimates the total at US $31.3 billion, onethird more than was spent in London.
Hence all these malls, hence Dubai’s annual shopping festival, hence so many other things that make Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, such a vivid, multipurpose playground.
Dubai, as the latest Pocket Rough Guide has it, is like nowhere else on the planet. It has become one of the globe’s most glamorous urban destinations, fuelled “by a heady cocktail of petrodollars, visionary commercial acumen and naked ambition”.
The skyline is only the start of it: its towering buildings are a clear statement of intent. Looming above all else is the Burj Khalifa, 160 storeys and 828m high. The superlatives pile up: world’s tallest building, world’s highest observation deck, highest occupied floor in the world. The views on a clear day are stupendous. And, yes, this is the building on whose exterior Tom Cruise performed such heroics in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
Dubai aims to lure 20 million visitors a year by 2020 and the range of attractions is both startling and flamboyant.
A huge indoor ski slope, covered with snow? You’ll find it in the Mall of the Emirates. Hotels that are landmarks in their own right? Naturally: the dhow-sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the huge Atlantis resort. A massive aquarium and underwater zoo? Head for the Dubai Mall, home to 1,200 shops. The Atlantis, by the way, has an Aquaventure water park and The Lost Chambers within an underground aquarium that is home to some 65,000 marine creatures.
If you’re hooked on the idea of shopping, all those malls will lighten the heaviest of wallets, but there is so much else to do in Dubai. Visit the rather fine beaches. Take the children to one of the many theme parks. Enjoy the nightlife. Sample some culture: February’s jazz festival, December’s film festival, the “edgy arts events” in the arts district, Al Quoz. Try a desert safari, a camel ride or sand-skiing, or take a hot-air balloon ride over the city. There’s a lot to see in the old Dubai too, and the crowded souks teem with everything from spices and perfume to gold jewellery. Or escape the city and see what else the UAE has to offer.
Restaurants, meanwhile, cater for every type of cuisine and budget, and the fussiest of palates. Gary Rhodes is among the celebrity chefs who have opened restaurants here. Fine dining, beachside breakfasts, boho brunches and rooftop dining are in plentiful supply; there’s even a food festival, this year running between February 23 and March 11.
Dubai, it’s as well to point out, has proved to be controversial in some respects. Many people object to, among other things, its legal system (there have been a number of well-publicised cases in recent years).
It’s been a while since I was in Dubai but crystal-clear memories remain. I remember being dazed by the buildings, shimmering through the haze, and malls that were larger than most town centres; the view from the 27th-floor Skyview Bar at the Burj Al Arab; the highways nose-to-tail with luxury cars; the morning when I had a golden beach all to myself. On the last night of the trip we partied on a hotel rooftop, listening to Arabic music and puffing gingerly on waterpipes beneath a cloudless sky. We went for a swim in the sea at 3am prior to our flight back home. We landed later that day at rainy, cloudy Glasgow. The contrast with Dubai could not have been sharper.