25/04/2026
Pain For UAE Hotels As Tourists Flee!
The Anantara in Dubai is closing down for good. Why would a luxury hotel do so unless the market is dead?
The Burg Al-Arab, the iconic hotel which came to symbolise Dubai, much as Eiffel Tower symbolises Paris, is closing down for 18 months for retrofitting, so it claims. A number of other luxury hotels are also closing down for “renovations”. Yet others like St Regis are scaling back operations.
Whatever the reasons given, let’s face it, the economic model of Dubai is dead. Dubai is a salutary lesson of how a city with an overwhelmingly expatriate population(92%) made the wrong decision in siding with the Americans and the Israelis, in a region where the natural big power is Iran. Paying protection money to a superpower and allowing it to use your territory for military purposes is a poor bargain for annoying your giant neighbour across the Persian Gulf. Your “protector” does not guarantee your security.
