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.

Saudi Odyssey: Comparatively this is a gem.

Visit Saudi. First the good points: BETC does a great job at making this... sort of sexy visually. The copy is incredible "this land is calling" followed by "Saudi welcome to Arabia" (akin to Malaysia truly Asia - whereby a nation encompasses a whole culture and a dig to all competitors who claim to show "Arabia" - no names, you know yourselves). This is also much much better than the Messi/messy effort (here), than the Neom brouhaha (here) even if Neom is included in this ad, or the Saudi Airlines (Saudia) ad with no arrival point (here). The minus points: I am not sure there is a cohesive thread here - never mind getting an actress who looks like a Natalie Portman (insert all Star Wars references here because the ad is called "Saudi Odyssey"), or the rather boring platitudes before the lovely line "this land is calling" (which are very ho-hum). The visuals however compensate for the lack of the strong concept I suppose.

Again, considering the oddities we were subjected to prior to this film, this one seems a gem indeed. Watch the film here. 

Al Nassr scores a beautiful promo!

Whereas it is rare for me to talk about the creatives - well, props for Christopher Shearer and Them Again for this. Shearer who describes himself as " Celtic-obsessed lad from a tiny town" just came up with this beautiful promo for Al Nassr Football Club in Saudi Arabia. All right, all right, yes it is the same Al Nassr that signed Christiano Ronaldo (and yes, he is on board of the promo!) but thankfully not the center of it or anything. On the contrary, the visuals scroll from obsessed and obsessive fans (yes, that's football for you), in the yellow Al Nassr jerseys, the men and yes - women! (this being Saudi Arabia that took a while) - and that palpable thrill of the scoring, the players (not just CR7 thank you very much) and the archives and the way the old images pass by - never too retro but still indicating the past. And it all goes down so seamlessly until the Al Nassr/Adidas logos show up.

The beauty? The film does not stop there. It goes on with some children playing in some back alley as they often do. And guess which jersey the small kid that scores is wearing? Brilliant indeed! See the film here. 

The line has been erased

Remember The Line? That major humongous project of 170 kms in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert? The one that flooded us with sci-fi imagery, a full city encased in reflective walls, where humans would not need cars because their needs would be met in a 5-minute walk? And a high-speed rail system would tie it from one end to the other? The one where all energy was renewable? The one that was 500 meters in height but only a width of 200? Yes, all that. Well, it seems that the project has been drastically scaled back. Scaled back to the tune of 2.4 kms by the end 2030, it would end up housing 300,000 people apparently instead of the promised 1.5 million by that time.

You can read what went wrong here. It follows the many projects which touted cities as lines, yes - the concept existed prior and no, it did not work out. You might enjoy this article in The Guardian (here) about the many predecessors to The Line and how they all ended up flat on their belly - no pun, because that's exactly what The Line is or to quote Edgar Chambless who himself dreamed of a linear city "the idea occurred to me to lay the modern skyscraper on its side".

Well, the positive in all this is that the "death trap" the city was to migrant birds is no more - not to mention the Howeitat tribe which will no longer be displaced from their lands (even if some of its members are already in jail for daring to disagree with the project). 

Still, when an architectural project hires people specialized in gaming imagery to release its concept, it does tell you how divorced it was from reality. Also, apparently the mastermind behind the project - Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince himself - kept changing his idea about the project which led to a rotating masthead all over the place.

So voila, seems the utopia was just that. And castles were built, not in Spain, but in the desert.

On Saudi tourism, stereotyping and reality.

Two days ago I spoke about Saudi tourism... Maybe now is the time to speak again... Please check the "Messi/Messy" thing here. OK, so the idea of the ad is to get famous football player Messi as an ambassador to debunk Saudi "stereotypes". Saudi Arabia is not "just a desert". This is correct but I also have seen paved roads with the sand which was excavated thrown on the two sides of the streets. Again, yes, Saudi Arabia is not just a desert, but to get to the other parts requires being out of the classical sedentary areas.

Now, "nothing ever happens"? Sure there are concerts and events lead by Turki Al-Sheikh (according to his wikipedia he is is a Saudi adviser at the Royal Court under the rank of Minister and the current Chairman of General Authority for Entertainment). Major A-list stars have flocked to Saudi Arabia to do concerts, many other stars have been granted Saudi nationality and on it goes. How much of this trickles down to the normal/average Saudi is however open for debate.

Is it a "closed culture"? Ok, this is where it gets tricky. Stadiums have only very recently opened a section for "families" (as everything - restaurants etc, there are places for "singles" (i.e. men) and "families"), and yes women have been granted the right to drive also not long ago. May I however remind you of the case of Loujain Al-Hathloul who was jailed for three years for campaigning for women's rights to drive and who was only released very very shortly before women obtained their right to drive? Again, perhaps a lot happened since the last time I was in the kingdom in 2004 visiting a VIP client, but once more, no - society is not open. Let us not hide behind our fingers.

"Girls can't". OK, there is Sarah Attar who competed in the London 2012 edition, and there were others as well - notably Wajdan Shahrakhani the judo player who participated in the same edition. But get this, there was someone on X (formerly twitter) who described these women as "عاهرات الاولمبياد" (literally the Olympics sluts). Kind reminder - this was only 12 years ago and barely. Now, are you going to tell me a society goes from ultra-conservative to Liberal in this short span of time?

You can watch the film here. I still think though that what was shown in the film are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Saudi tourism, between messy and Messi

So Saudi Arabia is very serious about its tourism. Every other day in whatever online publication I read I see an article about tourism in Saudi Arabia. Some hyperventilating others keeping things more real. But the fact that Saudi bagged so many stars as ambassadors is truly a sign that they are very serious.

To be clear, yes, there are many interesting places to visit in Saudi Arabia, I know so because I was there in 2002-3 and went totally off the beaten track and saw wonderful things. It does get very cold at night in the desert by the way, so you might need to layer up. But all this being said, do people want to come to Saudi Arabia? Apparently I read that a total of 77.84 Million people did visit in 2022 (here), of course how many of those in the Hajj and Omra as opposed to regular tourists. Inbound tourism according to the same source was 16.64 million people. Already in 2022, religious tourism was 37%, visiting friends and relatives was 31%, business was 10%... So "leisure" and "other" were 18% only (here).

Now, what the kingdom is doing is basically replicating the success of Dubai. The #mydubai campaign was a total smash hit, so KSA went with #ShareYourSaudi and #السعودية_بعيونك the campaign's headline is "beyond what you think". Also Saudi Arabia is opening the first alcohol shop for non-Muslim diplomats (OK, this disregards the major bootleg and black market alcohol market already present there) a first in the kingdom since the 1952 ban.

After Ronaldo, who plays football for a local club, Messi is the second major boost for the kingdom in terms of international ambassadors. And yes, the star and his family are going all out promoting places to go and things to be seen in the kingdom.

Would this entice people to come visit KSA as tourists? I feel there is something very messy (pardon the pun) in the strategy. There is a full film by the way, watch it here.

Anghami x Almarai, AI and make it for kids

Remember the Chupa Chups lollipop thingy (here)? Well, seems AI is on its way to be more and more involved in children's ad world. Anghami (the leading music and entertainment audio platform in the MENA region) and Almarai (the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy company and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle East) have teamed up for a tech-driven (read, AI) campaign headlined "milk everyday is the smart way" (was there stupid way for milk everyday? Asking for a friend), and in Arabic "شرب الحليب.. سر اللبيب" which roughly translates as "drinking milk is the loved one's secret" (yes, I know... sigh). 

The campaign apparently resides on inserting the child's name in a song, parents can effortlessly create a personalized song for their child to enjoy while promoting the good daily habit of drinking fresh milk. Now, copywriting fiascos aside, someone tried this and it turns out this is based on 1) preassigned names 2) very limited themes (4 to be precise). 

Whereas the Chupa Chups was truly entertaining, this one left me a little head-scratching myself. Sure, I am neither the target audience nor am I too technically-forward, but still, is it worth it? Jury is truly out on this one. This juror is underwhelmed.

Spotify KSA finds the perfect dig against Argentina

Well, in case you have not heard KSA has gone to shock Argentina by winning 2-1. A monumental shock in the football world. A "messi" result if there was ever one (har har).

But listen closely - again a pun - because it seems Spotify KSA found the perfect anti-Argentina dig.

In a very "innocent" pinned tweet Spotify KSA simply put "don't cry for me Argentina" - the famous song about Eva Duarte - on its account. Perfectly digging against Argentina all while simply claiming cherubic innocence.

Yes, this is how we do it!

IKEA goes kitsch for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain

IKEA has gone fully kitsch in a campaign done for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain announcing the 70% sale - as someone who is very much into that aesthetic, I have no problem swallowing it. Apparently the whole campaign has been done for IKEA Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and involves specifically homes from that region done and redone to the max. Now, here's the problem.

Who is the campaign talking to? Obviously to locals. The line? "Don't let furniture wear you".

OK, as someone heavily versed into copyrighting, I can tell you this line is not transposable into Arabic. Which makes me wonder how the locals will react to such a campaign when the punchline is not even in their own language. 

To be clear, and this is not some sort of cultural judgement, Saudi Arabian learn basically Arabic and nothing else at school. I was in Saudi and a man asked me for help - he was unable to retrieve money from the ATM. Why? I was unable to punch the numbers of his card or the correct command options.

So the campaign leaves me a bit confused as to the target audience. As if there was a disconnect somewhere.

Saudi Tourism: Islamically compliant fun

Look you have to hand it out to them - making Islamically compliant tourism fun is no mean feat, yet Saudi Tourism does exactly that in an ad which is fantastically well edited (OK, fine the technique was used to the best effect by Nike prior - look here) but still credit is due for finding perfectly matching scenes which illustrate different aspects of Saudi landscapes and activities whether you are young and single (males only in the car though) or a family (which is how usually everything in Saudi is divided). And truthfully having had a stint in Saudi prior, I can tell you there is indeed much to do.

But again, the ad is incredibly well researched and executed all while still being Islamically compliant (while at the beach, a woman has only her feet showing as the rest is in a white linen tunic, or while riding an ATV the girl is still wearing a black abaya, or as I said previously, the segregation between young single males and families). Still the ad is alluring, charming and reveals the many things to do in Saudi.

I could have a question though about its target audience, which leaves me a little confused. If non-Arabs are targeted, despite all its lovely scenes, they might be a little baffled as to the implicit restrictions. Now, if Arabs from the Gulf nations are, this is par for the course for them. Perhaps, quite simply, their target are local Saudis who are invited to discover more of their country... Still, a very well done ad.

See it in full here.

ARAMCO Christmas and a Santa on a camel!

Source

Apparently the sleigh broke down, or NORAD did a mistake in its tracking, or maybe Santa wanted to explore local traditions, or it could simply be the ARAMCO staff in Saudi Arabia celebrating Christmas through the years, but honestly - the sight of Santa Claus on a camel is a joy to behold. Even on boxing day!