Then: Dubai’s First Hotels and Visitors in the 1970s In the 1970s, the concept of Dubai as a tourist destination would have seemed faintly absurd to most people outside the Gulf. The emirate was not on any international traveller’s radar, and the idea of visiting Dubai for leisure rather than business or trade had simply […]

Then: Jumeirah Beach as a Fishing Village in the 1950s In the 1950s, the stretch of coastline known today as Jumeirah was a quiet, sparsely inhabited strip of land running south of the Dubai Creek settlement along the Arabian Gulf. Small Emirati fishing villages dotted the shoreline at intervals, their simple palm-frond homes and fishing […]

Then: Dubai Police in the Early Days When the Dubai Police Force was formally established in 1956, it consisted of just a handful of officers tasked with maintaining order in a small trading town of a few thousand residents. The founding force was modest in every respect – limited in numbers, basic in equipment, and […]