Yes, Dubai is safe, no, Dubai is not the same.

Mid-80s travel poster for Dubai

All over Linkedin, and I mean all over Linkedin, the same chorus appears ad infinitum "Dubai is safe" some get more creative and go "I feel safe in Dubai". I am happy for them, because I am in Lebanon and no I do not feel safe. Also add to the cacophony sentences like "the state knows what it is doing" and "Reem Al Hashimy (UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation) has given a great interview to CNN" (the last one appears under different wording but the gist is the same). 

No one talks about the conversative estimate of the 45 Billion Dollars in expected loss of revenue to the UAE from the war, because let's face it, someone in their right mind is not going to go to Dubai for vacation at this point. No matter how "safe" it is - and everyone and their mother is reminding us that it is so (check Linkedin, again).

Once the aura is broken, it cannot be restored. Do note, when the financial crisis happened in 2008, Dubai got hit incredibly hard, at one point I had a meeting with the owner of a magazine and asked why no one was covering the disaster, and he said "Tarek, there is an embargo, no one is to publish any bad articles about what is happening there, I know who is buttering my bread" - a week later he was in Dubai, met by a limousine at the airport as part of a charm offensive to open the new studios of a major news channel.

But now it is different, and yes, I know - skyscraper this, and museum of the future that, and 200-300 Millions spent yearly for the Louvre name for Abu Dhabi - for heaven's sake even Margiela has a real estate project there. I know many proclaim "life is the same", and I read that missiles or no missiles everyone is "being back to their hookah and food". Good for them. 

In this case where are there so many repatriation flights and why are they over-booked and why is everyone clamoring to get their families out and every department of foreign affairs is advising its nationals not to travel to a lot of the countries in the region or to contact their embassies urgently to be able to arrange flights for them to go back home? Because perhaps "buttering one's bread" is no longer enough.

It is estimated that the region - which had a projected growth of 13% as of December 2025 - will lose an average of 30 million visitors, and the spend that comes with them. Saudi Arabia which was projected to be on a heavy growth path is slowing down beyond any logical estimations with flight cancellations happening acutely.

Will this have a halo effect for the future is still topic of debate. To misquote Shakespeare, "something is rotten in the state of" - no, not Denmark, but rather somewhere in the GCC. And no matter how many "Dubai is safe"s I see parroted on Linkedin, something does smell foul.

Yas Island keeps screwing up the hits

It seems I am always the dissident one. But last year the ad Staying on Yas - which you guessed it was a reprise of the Bee Gees Staying Alive (with different lyrics) - was, to put it mildly, not it for me. You can see the ad here. I loved the first few seconds that mimic the original clip - three men walking in 70s clothes... Then of course, with all the other stuff that people can do on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi the video lost its plot (and its raison d'etre as a duplication of the original song). 

Somewhere in the middle there is a shopping scene on what seems to be a wink to the original film's Tony Manero (the checkered floor was a hint to the one that he dances on at the club). But otherwise, it was not it as there were too many things to list and portray (and truth be told apart from the chorus "Staying on Yas" the rest of the lyrics simply do not register for you).

But hey, seems the ad worked because Yas Island is back at it with - Yas Yas Baby - a riff on (you guessed it again) Vanilla Ice "Ice Ice Baby". Watch the ad here. The ad, like last year's is exceptionally well-produced. And even if the lyrics pop on your screen you cannot but help go back to the original hit in your own mind. 

Here's the thing - the two ads are actually nice. Really, visually they are very arresting. I just can't see the duplication of very well-known hits as something that would stick because you'll always go back to the lyrics you know (while humming along the ad).

Also, side hint, to which audience these ads are going for? I know this seems a little ridiculous but many youngsters - to which several of the depicted activities are targeted - simply do not know Staying Alive or Ice Ice Baby. Don't believe me? Look here.