Desert luxury: a burgeoning oasis, Dubai is the new "in" place for the vacationing CEO.New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. entrepreneur Grace Gallo is three years away from turning 50, but she's already emailing friends and family to save the date for a big birthday bash abroad. The location? A place unthinkable just five years ago: Dubai. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] She briefly considered Egypt but selected the bustling Middle Eastern outpost with its over-the-top hotels, restaurants and nightclubs for her early September celebration--even though she knows Dubai will be blaringly hot then. She's planning to blow out her birthday candles at the $666-per-night Burj Al Arab The Burj Al Arab (Arabic: برج العرب, "Tower of the Arabs") is a luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates managed by the Jumeirah Group and built by Said Khalil. It was designed by Tom Wright of WS Atkins PLC. Hotel, a sail-shaped landmark on the Arabian coast. It gets seven stars for its all-duplex suites, 24-hour butler service, rooftop helicopter pad, underwater bar and Rolls-Royce fleet. "I managed to get 50 people to come to Vienna and stay at the Danieli [Hotel] for a Venetian ball on my 40th birthday, so I think I can do this," says Gallo, an Italian-born, Australian native who runs export marketing consultancy Gallaco from an office in Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center, complex of buildings in central Manhattan, New York City, between 48th and 51st streets and Fifth Ave. and the Ave. of the Americas (Sixth Ave.). The project was sponsored by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. . Dubai is inspiring more global-minded execs like Gallo, who has worked in China and traveled worldwide, to sample Arabia in this safe cosmopolitan oasis of more than 1.2 million people. Business-class passengers arriving in Dubai after an overnight flight on Emirates Airways feel fairly refreshed, thanks to such comforts as self-adjusting, vibrating vibrating, v using quivering hand motions made across the client's body for therapeutic purposes. seats that recline re·cline v. re·clined, re·clin·ing, re·clines v.tr. To cause to assume a leaning or prone position. v.intr. To lie back or down. to become bed hideaways, wireless in-flight email, personalized video on demand and French champagne. Met by a representative of Emirates, they are whisked through immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. courtesy of a no-fee visa instantly granted at the airport and escorted to a curbside Mercedes for a 10-minute ride into the city. Along the wide Sheikh sheikh or shaykh Among Arabic-speaking tribes, especially Bedouin, the male head of the family, as well as of each successively larger social unit making up the tribal structure. The sheikh is generally assisted by an informal tribal council of male elders. Zayed Boulevard cutting north-south through the city, neon signs and gleaming skyscrapers set against a desert landscape remind one of Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. . [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though Arabic is the official language here, English is widely spoken and one could almost forget that one is in the Middle East if not for the large number of mosques in the city, the occasional palace and the traditional Arab clothing of the locals. First-time visitors quickly discover that Dubai's shops and museums are closed on Thursdays and Fridays but reopen on Saturday morning, and that alcohol is not served in hotels during Islamic religious holidays and not in restaurants outside the hotels at any time. Although a recent terrorist attack in nearby Bahrain gave pause to some international business travelers. Dubai has so far avoided the political conflicts of the Middle East. A small coastal village in the 1830s, but today one of seven making up the United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates, federation of sheikhdoms (2005 est. pop. 2,563,000), c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. , Dubai is emerging as an "in" destination. Nearby Doha and Qatar may vie for the title, but Dubai is becoming the region's hub for business. Tourism is one of the growth engines and the number of hotel guests swelled in 2003 by 5 percent to 5 million, many of them Brits and Germans who came to soak up the bright sunshine at the numerous luxury resorts lining the shores of the Arabian Gulf Arabian Gulf: see Persian Gulf. . Travel from the U.S. is picking up, too, after a dip following the September 11 terrorist attacks; the number of U.S. visitors increased to 126,000 in 2003 from 94,000 the year before. Helping boost the numbers is a new, 12-hour direct flight from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (IATA: JFK, ICAO: KJFK, FAA LID: JFK to Dubai by Emirates Airways with free stopovers and bargain hotel rates for passengers en route to Asia or Africa. Attracted by strong economic growth, entrepreneurs have poured in from nearby countries. Some 80 percent of Dubai's citizens hail from other regions of the world, many of them from India. Local Indian entrepreneur Kulwant Singh runs Lama Desert Tours & Cruises, the city's first privately owned tour operator. Lama offers spine-tingling, jeep caravan rides into the desert, roller coaster riding over the dunes. His company's all-teak traditional dhow dhow One- or two-masted Arab sailing vessel, usually with lateen rigging (slanting, triangular sails), common on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. On the larger types, called baggalas and booms, the mainsail is considerably bigger than the mizzensail. or cabin cruiser takes visitors on dinner cruises along Dubai Creek  This article lacks historical information.Please [ add it] if you can. For more information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Historical information. for an overview of the city. Grandiose, Dubai is. Ads proclaim nearly every hotel, restaurant, nightclub, show, shopping mall or real estate development as the largest, priciest or most luxurious of them all. One of the most popular resorts is referred to even by locals only by its full name, the One & Only Royal Mirage. Just north of the Mirage, on landfill in the shape of a palm tree, some 2,000 villas, hotels, shopping centers and cinemas are rising. The project is already sold out and the developer, Nakheel, is planning two larger island developments--one with 300 raw islands in the shape of a globe. Investors can buy part or all of a "country," and one investor wound up buying all the islands that make up the shape of Australia, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Jacqui Josephson, a marketing exec for The Palm project. She says it's up to investors to decide how to use the property--private island, golf resort, executive retreat or whatever. There's no shortage of things to do in Dubai. For sports fans, the calendar of events is packed in all but the hottest summer months with the Dubai Marathon, the Tennis Open, the Desert Classic, the World Cup, the Duty Free Grand Prix Grand Prix n. pl. Grand Prix Any of several competitive international road races for sports cars of specific engine size over an exacting, usually risky course. and so on. For golfers, the city has six championship courses. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Plenty to Buy in Dubai Tired of sports? Try shopping. How about the month-long Dubai Shopping Festival Dubai Shopping Festival started on February 15 1996 as a retail event intended to revitalise retail trade in Dubai. It has since been promoted as an tourist attraction. This yearly month long event is usually scheduled during the first quarter of the year. starting in mid-January? It attracts more than 5 million visitors who come for the retail pavilions and carnivals and also the chance to win daily raffle prizes, ranging from 1 kilogram of gold to Lexus cars to villas. And don't forget the well-stocked and crowded gold and spice souks or the high-fashion boutiques and electronic shops in any one of Dubai's 30 and growing shopping malls. The airport itself is a gigantic duty-free shopping zone. Raffles are held regularly and winners drive away in a brand-new Porsche or Jaguar. One lucky London advertising executive brags that he won two of the cars; he sold one and had the other shipped home. For the adventuresome, the desert beckons. Try an overnight safari in the desert to see isolated villages, camel farms and the Hajar mountains in the distance. Experience sand skiing down the dunes, imaginably a lot like surfing. After the sun goes down, try a traditional Arabian barbecue of spiced lamb while sitting under the stars; and afterwards, take in a belly dance performance. A highly romantic experience can be had at the Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa, with 41 Bedouin-style suites outfitted with private plunge pools overlooking a vast desert conservation reserve. Camel rides, horseback riding horseback riding: see equestrianism. , falconry falconry (fôl`kənrē, fô`–, făl`–), sport of hunting birds or small animals with falcons or other types of hawks; eagles are used in some parts of the world. displays and archery are but a few of the amusements here. Back in the city, the choice of hotels comes down to city or beachfront beach·front n. A strip of land facing or running along a beach. adj. Situated along or having direct access to a beach: beachfront hotels; beachfront property. Noun 1. properties. In the city, the Emirates Towers looks eerily like the Twin Towers but has been named one of the best business hotels in the world for its many must-haves: fitness facilities, executive lounge, rooftop restaurants and bars, conference rooms and quick access to corporate offices. At the beach, there's the usual assortment of Ritz-Carlton hotels and the like, plus a newly opened high-end Arabian resort called Madinat Jumeirah, owned by the same group that operates the close-by Burj Al Arab. A recreation of an ancient Arabian village, the extra-large property features two hotels (one like a palace; the other like a citadel) and 29 traditional courtyard summer houses with private pools. The resort also has a full-scale souk, tennis courts, a spa, and its best feature: a wraparound Wraparound A financing device that permits an existing loan to be refinanced and new money to be advanced at an interest rate between the rate charged on the old loan and the current market interest rate. lagoon with numerous canals and waterways for travel by water taxi anywhere in the resort. Seemingly, no expense has been spared, including a conference area large enough to host a World's Fair. While some say Dubai verges on being ridiculous, Jonathan Howell-Jones, a marketing official with Dubai Internet City Dubai Internet City (DIC) is an information technology park created by the Government of Dubai as a free economic zone and a strategic base for companies targeting emerging markets. who relocated from rainy Britain, takes umbrage. "We're here, right? And we're not going. The taxes are low, the health care system is good, and the weather is just about like this for eight months of the year," he says, pointing to a clear-blue sky on a 99-degree day, the wind blowing lazily through the palm trees. RELATED ARTICLE: IF YOU GO Dubai [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Top Hotels and Resorts Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa P.O. Box 7631 Dubai, U.A.E. 971-4-832-9900 www.al-maha.com Burj Al Arab (pictured above) P.O. Box 74147 Dubai, U.A.E. 971-4-301-7777 www.burj-al-arab.com Madinat Jumeirah P.O. Box 75157 Dubai, U.A.E. 971-4-366-8888 www.madinatjumeirah.com One & Only Royal Mirage Jumeirah Beach P.O. Box 37252 Dubai, U.A.E. 971-4-399-9999 www.oneandonlyroyalmirage.com Emirates Towers Hotel P.O. Box 72127 Dubai, U.A.E. 971-4-330-0000 www.emiratestowershotel.com |
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