Every summer, Dubai does something that goes against the natural logic of a city where July temperatures regularly touch 45 degrees – it leans in. Instead of quietly marking time until cooler weather returns, it launches campaigns, fills calendars, opens promotions, and actively tells the world that summer in Dubai is not a season to […]

A record 165,000 millionaires are projected to relocate across international borders in 2026, according to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report – the most comprehensive annual study of global high-net-worth individual movement. That number is up from 142,000 in 2025 and 134,000 in 2024, meaning the pace of global wealth migration is accelerating at a […]

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, today reviewed the results achieved by the UAE’s non-oil foreign trade in the first half of 2026. His Highness stated: “Today, we reviewed the UAE’s non-oil foreign trade results for the first half of 2026 […]

Seen from above, Palm Jumeirah looks almost unreal: a giant palm tree stretching into the Arabian Gulf, its trunk lined with towers and its seventeen fronds packed with villas. It remains one of the most recognizable pieces of land reclamation ever built, and more than two decades after construction began, it’s worth revisiting how – […]

Few buildings in the world generate the kind of instant recognition that Dubai’s Museum of the Future does. Its torus-shaped silver exterior, wrapped in Arabic calligraphy quoting the words of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has become one of the most photographed structures on the planet since it opened in 2022. But beyond its […]

DP World, through Air Cargo Hub Punta Cana, joined forces with UniWorld Air Cargo, Grupo Velutini and Athiopica to deliver more than 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid to communities affected by the recent earthquakes in Venezuela. The collaborative effort demonstrates how integrated logistics capabilities can support rapid emergency response. It is part of DP World’s […]

Dubai has a habit of solving problems with solutions that sound mildly absurd until you realise they actually work perfectly. The problem this time is a familiar one: how do you keep a city of four million people physically active during a summer where the outdoor temperature makes exercise genuinely dangerous? The Mallathon answered part […]

On the second of July 2026, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, chaired a meeting at Emirates Towers and approved a package of new government strategies and infrastructure projects worth AED 18 billion. Eighteen billion […]

Words carry weight. The language we use to describe people shapes how society sees them, treats them, and ultimately values them. For most of modern history, the words used to describe people living with disabilities have reflected limitation – what a person cannot do, what they lack, what sets them apart from an assumed norm. […]

Dubai-born AVENEW Development announces plans for The Ritz-Carlton Residences Dubai, The World Islands, the latest addition to its growing portfolio of distinguished addresses and its second collaboration with Marriott International. The project reflects AVENEW’s founding principles of thoughtful design, distinctive location selection and timeless quality. The World Islands form an archipelago of approximately 260 man-made […]

Emirates is revealing another world first in the sky, transforming journeys for Economy Class passengers with the introduction of the U-Dream Headrest – a game-changing new seat addition that enables Economy Class customers to experience a whole new level of support and comfort inflight. Backed by a significant investment, installation is already underway across Emirates’ fleet, reinforcing […]

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced that it has approved a five-year plan to expand the emirate’s soft mobility network through 2030. It is aimed at strengthening links between residential areas and public transport stations and to build an integrated urban mobility system that supports first- and last-mile journeys, making travel easier and […]

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is being played across cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Dubai is approximately eleven thousand kilometres from the nearest stadium. This has not discouraged Dubai in the slightest. The city has set up dedicated World Cup fan zones, integrated the matches into its Summer Surprises programme, drawn tens […]

Most airports have a quiet season. Dubai International does not really do quiet. But even by its own extraordinary standards, what happens inside Terminal 3 during the first half of July each year is something that deserves a moment of appreciation. Dubai International Airport has announced it is bracing for approximately three million passengers in […]

The Icons of Porsche festival in Dubai has confirmed its 2026 dates. The sixth edition of the biggest automotive festival in the region will be held on 21-22 November 2026. Ticket sales will commence later this year, when more event information will also be announced. “The sixth edition of the Icons of Porsche festival in […]

What if the last decades of your life felt less like a slow decline and more like a continuation of everything that came before? That question has moved from philosophy into serious policy – and Dubai has answered it with something concrete. On 10 June 2026, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum issued Law No. […]

If you looked at the Dubai Golden Visa a couple of years ago and concluded it was not for you, look again. The categories have expanded significantly, the rules around property investment have been relaxed, and what once felt like a programme for wealthy investors with serious capital has quietly become accessible to a much […]

A trillion dirhams. Not a country’s GDP. Not a tech giant’s market cap. The brand value of a single city. According to a new study by Brand Finance -the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy -Dubai’s place brand value has surged to nearly Dh1 trillion, ranking it fifth among the most powerful city brands on Earth. […]

The Museum of the Future has announced the beginning of a new phase in its journey, launching work on a new generation of future experiences inspired by ideas and suggestions shared by individuals from around the world. This initiative is part of the museum’s preparations to deliver a renewed experience reflecting the latest scientific, technological, […]

Every city has its list of things to do. Dubai has a list of things that, once you experience them, make every other city’s list feel slightly ordinary. This is not about the Burj Khalifa or the gold souk – those are famous and they deserve to be. This is about the experiences that stop […]

Somewhere between the moment you settle into a fully reclining leather seat, accept a warm blanket from a butler, and order a three-course meal from a Michelin-inspired menu before the trailers have even started – somewhere in that moment – it occurs to you that what you are doing has almost nothing in common with […]

The global airline industry is, by almost any measure, one of the most brutally difficult businesses on Earth. Fuel prices swing wildly. Geopolitical events can shut down entire airspace corridors overnight. Passenger demand is sensitive to everything from economic downturns to pandemics to regional conflicts. The margins are wafer-thin, the costs are enormous, and the […]

The business aviation community will reunite in Dubai when the 11th edition of the MEBAA Show opens on 8th December at Dubai World Central.  Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Dubai Airports, and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline […]

Nobody taught most of us how to read a payslip, understand a mortgage, or manage a budget when we were at school. We learned quadratic equations and the causes of the First World War and how to dissect a frog, and then we were released into an adult world of tax returns, insurance premiums, and […]

If you have been paying attention to Dubai news in the past few weeks, you might have noticed that the city seems to be running several major announcements simultaneously, the way a conductor leads an orchestra – everything happening at once, everything contributing to a single overwhelming impression. Flying taxis are launching. The country’s first […]

Let’s be honest – when someone tells you they went for a run inside a shopping mall at seven in the morning, your first instinct is probably to laugh. It sounds absurd. A little mad, even. But then you hear that over 40,000 people did exactly that last summer, that they collectively logged 120 million […]

You know that moment when you are trying to pay for something online, and you sit there waiting for a text message with a six-digit code, and the website’s thirty-second timer is counting down, and the code has not arrived yet, and then it arrives but you mistype one digit, and the whole thing times […]

Then: When Single-Use Plastic Was Simply Part of Life There was a time in Dubai’s recent history when the question of how something was packaged, disposed of, or recycled was barely a question at all. Plastic bags were handed out at supermarket checkouts without a second thought, in quantities that bore no rational relationship to […]

Then: A Working Culture Shaped by Necessity and Endurance In the decades before Dubai became the global city it is today, work was not something that came with boundaries, policies, or flexible arrangements. It was a matter of survival, and the culture that surrounded it reflected that reality with complete honesty. Fishermen rose before dawn […]

Then: When Dubai’s Roads Were Barely Roads at All It is difficult to overstate how primitive the road network of old Dubai truly was. In the 1950s and well into the 1960s, most of what passed for roads in the emirate were nothing more than compacted sand tracks worn into the desert floor by the […]

Then: Safety Built on Community and Presence In the early decades of Dubai’s existence as a modern settlement, the safety and security of the city rested not on technology, not on surveillance systems, and not on sophisticated law enforcement infrastructure, but on something far older and in many ways far more powerful – the tight-knit […]

Then: Summer in Dubai Was a Season to Escape For most of Dubai’s history, summer was not a season to be celebrated – it was a season to be endured, and if at all possible, escaped. The months of June, July, August, and September brought temperatures that regularly exceeded forty-five degrees Celsius, humidity levels that […]

Then: A City That Ran Entirely on Cash Not long ago, cash was the undisputed language of commerce in Dubai. Whether you were buying spices in the old souk, paying your landlord three months of rent in a single envelope stuffed with notes, settling a restaurant bill, or purchasing gold jewellery worth tens of thousands […]

Then: Property in Dubai When a Home Was Just a Home There was a time in Dubai’s history when the concept of property as an investment, as a financial instrument, as something to be bought and sold and leveraged and traded on international markets, would have been entirely alien to the people who lived there. […]

Then: The Long Road Between Emirates For most of the UAE’s history since its founding in 1971, travelling between the emirates meant one thing and one thing only – getting in a car and driving. There was no other option. No train, no inter-city bus of any reliability, no rapid transit connecting Abu Dhabi to […]

Then: Moving Around Dubai the Old Way For the greater part of Dubai’s history, the question of how to get from one place to another was answered by the same simple means that had served the people of the Arabian Peninsula for centuries. The camel carried goods and people across the desert. The donkey cart […]

Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) celebrated the remarkable achievement of the National Youth Orchestra Dubai’s Strings Camerata Orchestra following the successful conclusion of their string of debut performances across some of Vienna’s most prestigious concert halls, including the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Musikverein (Golden Hall), and the ORF RadioKulturhaus, becoming the first UAE-based orchestra […]

Dubai maintained its strong economic performance in the first quarter of 2026, with the emirate’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reaching AED232 billion, representing a 2.4% increase from the same period last year. The performance reflects the strength, resilience, and adaptability of Dubai’s economy, driven by the diversity and integration of its economic activities, as well […]

The Everyday Problem Nobody Talks About Enough Everyone in Dubai has a metro story. The clean stations, the air conditioning, the punctuality that makes you feel like the city actually respects your time. But not everyone uses the metro, because not everyone lives or works near a metro station. For a huge number of people […]

flowork, the community-driven flexible workspace provider operating across Dubai Hills Business Park and Vision Tower, Business Bay, is contributing AED 325,000 worth of business support to Dubai’s small business community through a limited-time campaign for small businesses, startups, freelancers, entrepreneurs, consultants and growing teams across the city. In line with the Emirate’s “Dubai-it” philosophy of […]

Dubai’s residential market hit a new record for quarterly luxury home sales in Q1 2026, with 165 sales valued at over US$ 10 million, with another 131 homes sold during Q2 2026, including a record 26 homes changing hands for more than US$ 25 million, according to the latest analysis from global property consultancy Knight […]

From Jeff Bezos and Lewis Hamilton to Shah Rukh Khan, Naomi Campbell and members of royal families, Greek chef and entrepreneur Chef Sperxos has built a hospitality empire spanning 14 venues across the UAE, a private dining business serving the world’s elite, and a team of 10 private chefs operating across Greece. When some of the world’s […]

Then: What the Old Map of Dubai Showed If you were to find an old map of Dubai from the 1950s or early 1960s and lay it flat on a table, you would be looking at something that bears almost no resemblance to any modern representation of the city. The map would be almost entirely […]

According to the Julius Baer Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2026, Dubai stands out as a highly attractive and resilient regional hub for global wealth. Driven by shifting currency valuations that influence global living costs, the emirate delivers compelling competitive value for premium lifestyles, mirroring the broader Middle East’s strong wealth accumulation and upbeat investment […]

Then: Entertainment in the Desert Nights of the 1970s In the 1970s, entertainment in Dubai was a quiet, community-driven affair shaped by cultural tradition, religious observance, and the natural rhythms of desert life. There were no concert arenas, no theme parks, no cinemas showing international releases, and no global sporting events drawing tens of thousands […]

Then: Paper-Based Government and Manual Services in the 1990s As recently as the 1990s, interacting with the Dubai government meant navigating a world of paper forms, physical queues, rubber stamps, and manual processing systems that would be almost unrecognisable to a resident of the emirate today. Applying for a trade licence, renewing a visa, registering […]

Then: The Souk Era of Trade and Bargaining For centuries before the first shopping mall appeared on the Dubai skyline, the souk was the commercial heart of the city. These open-air and covered markets, clustered along the banks of Dubai Creek in the Deira and Bur Dubai districts, were where every transaction took place – […]

Under the directives  of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, Dubai Municipality has launched the world’s first AI-powered park design challenge, a pioneering initiative that will invite participants to […]

The Dubai Municipality has launched the world’s first AI-powered park design challenge, a pioneering pilot initiative to harness AI across urban planning, architecture, and park design. The project explores how an integrated ecosystem of AI tools can augment the entire design journey — from site analysis and user insights to concept generation, scenario testing, and […]

Dubai Health has launched “Dream-It, Dubai-It”, an interactive educational programme designed for children to explore the world of healthcare through hands-on experiences, creative workshops, and field visits that help them develop new skills and turn their ideas into impactful projects. The programme highlights Dubai Health’s commitment to providing immersive learning opportunities that enable children to […]

Then: The Blueprint and Vision Behind Burj Al Arab (1994) In 1994, the stretch of Jumeirah coastline where the Burj Al Arab now stands was nothing more than open sea and sandy beach. The idea that a hotel – not just any hotel but one that would redefine global luxury hospitality and become one of […]

Then: Mud-Brick Homes and Wind Towers of Old Dubai Before concrete, glass, and steel came to define Dubai’s skyline, the city was built from the earth beneath it. The traditional architecture of old Dubai was constructed primarily from coral stone, gypsum plaster, and sun-dried mud brick – materials sourced locally and shaped by centuries of […]

Then: The Simple Food Culture of Old Dubai Before Dubai became a city of celebrity chefs and Michelin-starred restaurants, its food culture was rooted in simplicity, tradition, and the natural bounty of the Arabian Gulf and the desert. For generations of Emiratis and the early trading communities that settled along the creek, food was sustenance […]

Dubai Police recorded a 99.9% score in the daytime safety perception index for 2025, according to the Security Quality of Life Survey conducted by the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior. The result is part of the Security Quality of Life Index, in which Dubai Police achieved an overall […]

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 […]