Why is everyone in the UK flying to the city of Dubai?
Did you know the city of Dubai opened their tourism doors to UK travelers? Well today, thanks to the U.A.E & UK’s tourism agreement, Dubai’s numbers are greater than ever.
In November, the UK & U.A.E. created an agreement called the “travel corridor”. This agreement allows travelers to travel to Dubai without a COVID-19 negative test result. The “travel corridor” provides travelers with the choice to self-quarantine, but if they don’t want to, the flight is still available.
According to The Washington Post, when the travel agreement was made, tourists immediately went to Dubai and their hotels were “seventy-one percent full” during the pandemic in December 2020.
Still so sunny?
The city of Dubai has reached a new level of COVID-19 cases since their travel agreement with the UK. The Washington Post described the recent rise in cases saying numbers have “tripled” in the last two weeks with over 3,500 each day.
With the United Arab Emirates’s population of over 9 million, Dubai immediately shutdown parts of the city and has limited all social gatherings & live entertainment. Dubai has implemented a large number of public health rules & regulations to free up hospital beds.
Dubai’s hospitals were instructed to delay any “elective therapeutic surgeries” for another month. Other industries in the city like restaurants & gyms, have to implement social distancing of at least 6.5 feet or more.
The Wall Street Journal announced on Sunday, January 24th, that the director general of Dubai’s Health Authority was fired after two years in office. Due to the city welcoming the UK tourists, the city is paying the price.
An economist at Capital Economics James Swanston told reporters, “In Q2, Dubai’s economy experienced an eighteen-percent contraction. It was hit very hard particularly by international travel restrictions. The tourism sector was badly hit.”
Struggling economy
The Wall Street Journal reported, the head of equity strategy at Dubai’s Tellimer bank, Hasnain Malik told the city: “The economic reality is this city has opened up because it needs to.”
Hasnain Malik continued, “You can’t have a city that’s dependent on travel, trade, tourism, hospitality, retail – with hotel occupancies below forty-percent for many, many months in a row. The economic scarring that would result from that is just too painful.”
Reported by The Washington Post, professor in the epidemiology and public health section of Royal Society of Medicine in London, Gabriel Scally expressed: “There can be no conceivable reason why any country in the world at the moment would open its doors to people traveling from the UK, where we know the virus has not been brought under control since the pandemic began.”
Plan of action
As per The Washington Post, the United Arab Emirates has targeted a vaccination campaign, pushing for approximately half of its country to be fully vaccinated by the end of March 2021. The country has vaccinated approximately 1.8 million people so far, and they’re ready to continue using the Sinopharm vaccine which was developed in China.
CNBC stated that the Pfizer Sinopharm vaccine has been distributed to locals free-of-charge since Wednesday, December 25th. The Sinopharm vaccine was created by the American & German pharmaceutical company Pfizer, and was found to be ninety-five percent accurate during their clinical trials.
Dubai resident, Mehnaz Aysha told The Wall Street Journal: “I feel lucky that I’m in a place where it is very easy to get.”
The city of Dubai’s ruler and prime minister of the U.A.E., Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid claimed: “Taking the vaccine is every individual’s responsibility to protect their health, families, and wider society.”
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Do you think Dubai will recover from their recent tourism blow? Let us know in the comments below.
