Dubai grabs the limelight - again

Dubai's Emirates airline - first order for the super jumbo

By Middle East correspondent Frank Gardner

The announcement on Monday that Dubai's Emirates Airline is to be the first to buy the new Airbus A3XX super jumbos has once again thrown a spotlight on the maverick Gulf emirate.

One of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai has a habit of setting new world records, from the lavish to the downright bizarre.

In March the Dubai World Cup horse race raised the winning stakes to an unprecedented $6m. Celebrities flew in for the event from around the world to sip chilled champagne in the desert heat.

In the same month the government gave away 27 luxury Rolls Royce Silver Seraph cars as raffle prizes in Rolls Royce's biggest deal. The offer, part of the annual Dubai Shopping Festival, gave impoverished Asian guest workers a chance to bid for a car worth $250,000.

'Glittering palace'

Last December Dubai threw open the doors of the world's tallest - and possibly most expensive - hotel. At 321 metres, the Burj Al-Arab (The Tower of the Arabs) is unlike any other building in the world.

With its swollen profile, it has been described by architects as resembling a wasp that has taken a nosedive into the sea.

The world's richest horse race was held in Dubai

Love it or hate it, this glittering vertical palace has a definite appeal for some of the Gulf's wealthiest families. The top suite costs over $15,000 a night and the hotel says it is doing a brisk trade.

Then there is the world's largest ever ice cream cake, all 4,000 kilos of it, presented to the city's children last summer after 1,000 hours of cold labour by 44 chefs.

This year the Gulf's first women taxi drivers took to Dubai's streets, and in May the emirate posted the first ever online divorce where a Dubai resident renounced his Saudi wife over the internet.

Adaptability

So what is it about Dubai that triggers these attention-grabbing events?

Compared to its neighbours, the emirate of Dubai is not especially rich, it has little oil of its own, and the city itself has less than one million inhabitants, most of whom are poor guest workers from South Asia.

Rolls Royce received its biggest single order from Dubai

The answer lies in Dubai's willingness to adapt.

The founder of modern Dubai, Sheikh Rashid al-Maktoum, was shrewd enough to realise that while neighbouring Abu Dhabi had most of the oil, Dubai's dwindling oil reserves would not bring lasting prosperity.

So Sheikh al-Maktoum built an international airport. You are mad, they told him, who would want to stop over here when there are already airports at Sharjah and Bahrain?

Today Dubai airport is bigger than both and is the largest airline hub in the region with over 11 million passengers coming through each year.

More than a stopover

Once Dubai was just a stopover, a place to pick up your duty free and maybe spend a morning shopping in the souk before flying on to Europe or the Far East.

Now it has become a holiday destination in its own right with every amenity.

Dubai's leaders are trying to make it a city of the future

Topless sunbathing is still taboo, but just about anything else is allowed in this fast-moving commercial capital of the Gulf.

Top London DJs fly in for one-night-only raves attended by many of the 20,000 British residents.

Almost every major sport has Dubai on its calendar, from tennis to golf to powerboat racing.

Cybercity

In October Dubai is due to open the Gulf's first cybercity, a $200m collection of offices which it hopes will attract the world's major names in e-commerce and online services.

Moving with the times, the emirate's Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, has embraced e-commerce as a way to keep abreast of the information technology revolution.

This year he ordered all government heads of departments to put their services online or risk being fired. Strangely, they have complied.