"I couldn't believe it. I said, what's he going to do? Air-condition the beach to make it cooler in the summer? I didn't take him seriously."
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman of DP World on Sheikh Mohammed's vision of making Dubai a leading tourist destination back in 1987.
Around 6.6 million tourists visited UAE last year and an estimated 3 million tourists are expected during DSF alone this year.
[...]"Bad people have no friends at all," he says. Besides, "Dubai has been instrumental in helping the US apprehend many religious people."[...]
ReplyDeleteThat one should play very well with all the hyper religious people in the region.
3.3 million for the DSF . I lived through three DSF's and it was obvious those numbers were not true.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @ 16:45
ReplyDeleteThey don't pull those numbers out of their ass. But the catch is in the way they get to it.
It includes everyone on a visit visa.The same goes for the annual tourist figures.
Here is some food for thought.
If the DSF lasts for 45 days, and there are 3.3 million visitors.
3.3 million / 45 = 73,333 visitors staying somewhere. Lets assume that 25% are from neighboring emirates. So 73,333 - 18,333 = 55,000 people need a place to stay every night.
At double occupancy thats 27,500 occupied rooms per night.
Now all this assumes that these people are not crashing at friends', relatives', hookers.
so what's why there's a huge traffic jam at DXB Int Airport everyday? aah.. how do the 3,000,000/30 = 100,000 people a day pass by that narrow road?!!?
ReplyDeleteNumbers could be true if transit passengers are also counted; otherwise they're hard to believe.
ReplyDelete