It’s 6am Dubai time and outside my room at the Oberoi is a city that never sleeps. By that, I mean, work never stops.
In the darkness of the dawn, I can hear hammering and knocking as men at work continue their labour to build a city that’s been in the making for at least the last two decades.
Build it and they will come and indeed, Dubai has and they have. 
On the flight over, I was intrigued by my fellow passengers, an elderly couple dressed in uniforms with a huge S logo.
I suppose I should have known what the S meant but being someone who’s not afraid to ask questions for fear of appearing stupid or ignorant, I found out it meant for Salvation Army and the man was Andre Cox, the current international leader.
He’s been with the organisation for 30 years and took up the chief’s reins more than a year ago. He tells me he’s been travelling for the past month – to Melbourne, Myanmar, Manila and Singapore. He tells me there are two million members in his Army.
I suppose you’d call him a corporate traveller. A VVIP traveller because they are met off the plane by an escort and they go through immigration and customs faster than any of us, especially those of us who were lulled into thinking “fast track” means just that.
Well, in Dubai, “fast track” is more track than fast. Tip to myself: Next time join the other queues. Not everything makes sense in Dubai.
Which is the sense I always get – that not everything makes sense – when I visit this city that’s virtually built out of sand. You forget that on normal days when all you see are skyscrapers, one taller than the other.
But occasionally nature reminds you as it did last week when a severe sandstorm hit Dubai and the UAE. Well, this morning a dense fog has rolled in and the city of blinding lights which I saw last night has turned grey.
Ah, the humbling wonders of nature.
Tomorrow, we open our second WIT Middle East and in the last 12 months, we hear things have been skyrocketing in Dubai. Rents have doubled, costs have tripled, visitors have increased, the city’s back on a roll. Indeed, the region is bustling with travel activity, from Abu Dhabi to Saudi to Oman. Last year we heard how the Internet was changing the market, driven by a very young population, 60% of whom are under 30. Well, this year, I am sure we will hear of accelerated change and lots of activity in the travel start-up space.
Last night, the restaurant we went to was packed with all sorts of nationalities. Koreans smoking shisha (now forbidden in Singapore by the way), Russians, Lebanese, Bulgarians – Dubai’s truly the melting pot of the region.
It’s still pleasant enough to sit outside and as we dine on hommus, baba ghanoush, tabouleh, chicken bryani and mixed grill, I soak in the atmosphere, created by a group of people who’ve chosen to be not where they were born.
Coming from a city of immigrants, where people have chosen to leave their homes for whatever reasons, this is what I love most about Dubai.
I love it that when I come here, I meet the world’s people.
Tomorrow, may the fog roll away, the sand blows away and the curtain rises on a new dawn in Middle East travel as we open WIT. See you soon.
