Thirty years ago in the pre-petroleum era of the Persian Gulf, the stretches of desert skirting the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman contained little more than small raiding bands of fiercely independent desert warriors. A few poor villages existed alongside meager oases, and scattered strongholds of desert sheiks operated under the colonial outposts of western empires.
When Britain and others decided it was time to reduce the drain these colonies were costing their treasuries, desert life went from bad to worse . . . until Allah gave them oil. Now these desert nomads have moved from poverty to post-modern in less than three decades. Nowhere has the change been more dramatic than in Oman. The Sultanate advanced from a mere 10 km of gravel road to a network of well-built and well-maintained national highways, and from 30 students in school to 500,000.
Other Gulf States show similar progress. The United Arab Emirate of Dubai is so developed that it is almost Disneyesque. Dubai's Burj Al Arab Hotel is a memorable landmark. It is part of the Dubai Summer Surprise tourism package, designed to bring foreigners both to Dubai and to this tiny man-made island with its 202 suites-only hotel (rooms from US$1,000 a day) in the Gulf summer when temperatures run up to 40ēC.
Laugh no longer! Dubai hotel occupancy ran around 60 percent in 1999, according to associates of zillionaire owner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. They predict an operating profit in 2001. How can they do this?
Visitors are delivered to the Dubai state-of-the-art airport by Emirate Airlines, recent winner of several awards (their 1998 profit was $85 million). Visitors have the option of hotel transfer via a white Rolls Royce limousine or, if you just can't wait, delivery by helicopter directly to the helipad jutting out from the side of the 321-metre-high hotel.
Golfers simply have to play the hotel course -- inside, air-conditioned, and even lighted for that midnight game you previously could only book in Yellowknife. In summer.
Designer suites boast up to 14 direct-dial phone lines linked to the hotel high-tech global network. With nothing to block the view and a butler on every floor, you don't wait long for any service. You can pay the same price in London for a lot less.
For the budget-minded, however, there are 180 other hotels, modern and open for business, with room rates running from US$13-US$155 per night.
Some 43 cruise ships are visiting Dubai this year. And the Dubai Airport just completed a minor US$450 million upgrading.
An alternative to all that air-conditioning? How about a desert safari under a starry starry sky, with barbecued camel served within an authentic sheikh tent furnished with Persian rugs?
The latest sport here is sand-boarding, similar to snow-boarding and using the same boards. Some dunes are 200 metres high and steeper than many a ski hill. Watch out for scorpions though, because once you manage to stay upright, you move quite slowly down the dune. Desert limousines, top-of-the-line Japanese four-wheel drive cars, meet sand-boarders at the bottom for the exciting ride up. The drivers all think they are cowboys from Texas!
