Dubai is now one of the most prestigious and popular tourist destinations in the world. With it’s eccentric designs such as the Palm Islands, the Burj Al Arab and the newly crowned world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, it is easy to see why it has become so popular. It’s wealth in natural resources like oil may have give them the kick start, but does Network Science reveal why Dubai was always destined for tourism success?
You may ask yourself, why has Dubai become so popular in recent years? Now, of course, often the answer you’ll hear is that they gained their wealth from their vast amounts of oil which enabled them to build. And yes, that does have some validity, but it isn’t solely accountable.
‘What is then?’ I hear you ask. The answer… Network Science.
If you look at Dubai on a map, it is almost equidistant between Europe, Far East Asia and Australia.
The significance of this is that the countries within these zones are some of the most popular, most important and strongest in the world. Because of their stature, they undoubtedly attract a large number of tourists, and travelling businessmen and women.
If you have ever made one of these trips yourself, you will know that you cannot fly direct to these destinations as technology simply won’t allow you to. This is where Network Science steps in.
Dubai is slap bang in the middle of these destinations making it a perfect place for planes to fly in and out of in order to refuel and give their passengers and pilots some rest. This is what has made Dubai such a hot spot for tourism. It has capitalised on the opportunity by recognising that by investing large amounts of money, it can take advantage of the huge number of people frequently passing through it.
But what I’m ultimately trying to get across, is that it was always going to be Dubai that would see this tourism success, and it’s simply because it is the most logical choice for a hub. It was meant to be.
According to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index, Dubai ranked 8th on the Top 20 Destination Cities by International Visitors for 2012 with 8.8 million visitors, which is just slightly less that Madrid on 9.7 million, who ranked 7th.
If it wasn’t for the significantly stronger economies being located so far apart, Dubai would not be the tourist hot spot it is today. But because of the exposure it has gotten from becoming a main hub, it has allowed it to gain significant levels of recognition and inevitably flourish.
But will Dubai always be needed as a hub? Will aerospace technology advance so far that the distance between places like the UK and Singapore become irrelevant, and a middle man is no longer needed? Or will Dubai develop so much, that their economy becomes strong enough to support itself and not rely on tourism?