Even Dubai Feels the Recession

When I last visited Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates [UAE], near Saudi Arabia), roughly a decade ago, its economy was booming. I went back recently to be a judge in an inaugural sign-design contest established by Intl. Expo-Consults, which was also coordinating the January 24-26 Sign & Graphic Imaging tradeshow. Things have changed. Even Dubai isn’t recession proof.

A fellow judge, who owns a Dubai outdoor-advertising company, told me that sales used to skyrocket exponentially year-to-year. Now, he laments, they’re flat to non-existent. One of the tradeshow organizers told me the UAE was struggling with an unknown concept, bankruptcy, and the government was scrambling to devise laws about how to handle it.

One night, I went to the 1200-store Dubai Mall (mistakenly thinking it was the one with the indoor ski slope). Uninterested in apparel, jewelry and electronics, I benefited much more from the exercise than anything else, despite many stores having 75% off sales. I found out it was “festival” time — the local equivalent of the off season — so most merchants use it to have huge sales.

While there, I was interviewed by a Dubai trade journal, ME Printer, for its February issue. In that same issue, Mona Al Khamis, the head of advertising in the Dubai government (and also a fellow sign-contest judge) was interviewed as well. She was asked if “the drop in demand for billboard spaces” had righted itself. And while most of her answers to other questions expressed optimism, here she could only answer, “I think the demand is growing, but at a slow pace.”

As an interesting side note, I asked about Dubai’s unemployment figure. “Zero,” I was told. Curious, I asked why. “Because if they lose their job, they leave.” Then I found out that roughly 80% of Dubai’s residents are there on work permits, even though many have retained that status for decades.