Dubai S Glitz Goes Global

In the beginning, Dubai built man-made islands in the shape of a world map so large it can be seen from space. Now Dubai is re-creating the actual world in its own image. Its big three companies–all chiefly owned by the ruling Maktoum family–announced plans to build luxury real-estate projects worth $40 billion in Pakistan, including two giant man-made-island resorts off Karachi. With vast theme parks, giant malls and luxury residences, the Dubai style is designed to attract rich locals, expat tycoons and returning émigrés who have made a bundle abroad. This summer, Dubai made a $19 billion, three-year investment commitment to developing Moroccan resort towns, like Oukaimeden, an improbable oasis of golf and skiing. The city-state is playing the lead role in constructing Saudi Arabia’s $27 billion King Abdullah City on its Red Sea coast–the largest private development in the kingdom’s history.

The list goes on and on, from Syria to Djibouti and Libya, where the second son of Muammar Kaddafi is working with Dubai partners to create his own version of the tiny emirate. The vision everywhere is the same: glamorous, palm-covered, Dubai-style gated communities with every luxury amenity, from designer shopping to first-class business facilities, aiming to attract foreign tourists, multinational corporate offices and bundles of direct investment. Many of these self-sufficient new cities will have their own internal laws to entice foreigners–like legalized drinking and gambling in an otherwise Islamic country, tax-free zones and top-rate schools and hospitals. “We have the perfect formula,” says Naaman Atallah, Emaar’s director of sales, “and now we are exporting it.”

What’s going on? First, Dubai’s home property market is peaking, pushing its tycoons abroad in search of opportunity, their pockets flush with oil money. Outward investment from the UAE nearly doubled last year to $8 billion, while nations across the region are reconsidering their initial skepticism about Dubai’s exuberant embrace of global competition. “Cynicism about the ‘Dubai model’–that it was a bubble–is dead,” says Andrew Jeffreys, CEO of the Oxford Business Group, a consulting firm. “There isn’t a country in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe that Dubai hasn’t looked at.”

The other key to Dubai’s lightning expansion is the unsurpassed daring of its investors. Take Dubai’s Damac Properties’ 27-story condominium project in Lebanon. Damac’s interior designer Ivana Trump had been planning a launch gala for the luxury address when Israel started bombing in July, and shut the party down. Still, that’s exactly the type of risk that Dubai’s developers are willing to take. “Dubai likes to dream with its eyes wide open,” says David Jackson, CEO of Istithmar, Dubai World’s alternative investment arm, formerly an investment banker on Wall Street. “No one here is looking for annuities-style returns. They’re looking for wealth and calculated risks. You hear investors in the West bemoaning the fact that they don’t have yield or growth, but they have to get out of Pittsburgh.”

At the chic golf club overlooking Emaar’s Amelkis development in Morocco, where brand-new Marrakech-red villas boast swimming pools with spouting fountains and imported gold statues, Waafa Snibla, director of Emaar Morocco, oversees the busy construction. “When you bring two things together,” she says philosophically, speaking of Dubai’s relationship with Morocco, “the next generation is more intelligent and more beautiful.” And much more glitzy.

title: “Dubai S Glitz Goes Global” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-18” author: “Ollie Gallo”

In the beginning, Dubai built man-made islands in the shape of a world map so large it can be seen from space. Now Dubai is re-creating the actual world in its own image. Its big three companies—all chiefly owned by the ruling Maktoum family—announced plans to build luxury real-estate projects worth $40 billion in Pakistan, including two giant man-made-island resorts off Karachi. With vast theme parks, giant malls and luxury residences, the Dubai style is designed to attract rich locals, expat tycoons and returning émigrés who have made a bundle abroad. This summer, Dubai made a $19 billion, three-year investment commitment to developing Moroccan resort towns, like Oukaimeden, an improbable oasis of golf and skiing. The city-state is playing the lead role in constructing Saudi Arabia’s $27 billion King Abdullah City on its Red Sea coast—the largest private development in the kingdom’s history.

The list goes on and on, from Syria to Djibouti and Libya, where the second son of Muammar Kaddafi is working with Dubai partners to create his own version of the tiny emirate. The vision everywhere is the same: glamorous, palm-covered, Dubai-style gated communities with every luxury amenity, from designer shopping to first-class business facilities, aiming to attract foreign tourists, multinational corporate offices and bundles of direct investment. Many of these self-sufficient new cities will have their own internal laws to entice foreigners—like legalized drinking and gambling in an otherwise Islamic country, tax-free zones and top-rate schools and hospitals. “We have the perfect formula,” says Naaman Atallah, Emaar’s director of sales, “and now we are exporting it.”

What’s going on? First, Dubai’s home property market is peaking, pushing its tycoons abroad in search of opportunity, their pockets flush with oil money. Outward investment from the UAE nearly doubled last year to $8 billion, while nations across the region are reconsidering their initial skepticism about Dubai’s exuberant embrace of global competition. “Cynicism about the ‘Dubai model’—that it was a bubble—is dead,” says Andrew Jeffreys, CEO of the Oxford Business Group, a consulting firm. “There isn’t a country in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe that Dubai hasn’t looked at.”