Dubai is famed to have:
·
The world’s
tallest tower – Burj Khalifa;
·
The
world’s tallest dancing fountain - The Dubai Fountain;
·
The
world’s biggest mall - The Dubai Mall, which has more than 1,200 stores and
houses an Olympic-sized ice skating rink, and the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo;
·
The
world’s largest themed shopping mall - The Ibn Battuta Mall, designed in honour
of Ibn Battuta, a famed Arabic explorer. The mall’s six courts draws design inspiration
from Andalusia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India and China, places where he
travelled;
·
The
world’s largest Ferris Wheel - Dubai-I, the biggest attraction in Venu
Bluewaters Island Hotel, a new leisure concept from the Jumeirah Group when
it’s completed in 2017.
For the first time in the Middle East, Dubai will be hosting World Expo 2020, as it also kicks off the country’s Golden Jubilee anniversary
celebrations. About 25 million visitors are
estimated to visit the Expo, and Dubai is already planning to build:
·
A new
airport – the five-runway Al Maktoum International Airport that will be able to
accommodate 160 million flyers a year after it’s completed in 2020;
·
A new The
Tower at Dubai Creek - taller than the Burj Khalifa; inspired
by the mythical hanging gardens of Babylon.
The tower would be a "gift to the city before 2020" says the Chairman
of Dubai-based Emaar Properties Mohamed Alabbar, the company behind the Burj
Khalifa, also behind the new tower.
So does ‘the bigger the better’
hold true? It is definitely a short cut way to put a destination on the map
very quickly. Everyone wants to see the biggest, the largest, the best. However, in a world that is so
internationalized now, the bigger of something may just be the same everywhere
else. The biggest, largest, best may draw
people, once. To draw them back again
and again, this is where we may have to connect the soul of the place with the
people who are visiting it. Information is no longer sought for information’s
sake (because it is too easy to get information nowadays), but the information
must be inspiring and surprising.
This is where the concept of sharing
live stories to connect with visitors may be useful. Sharing stories also mean that there must be
a person-to-person connection, and no longer just one-way information giving to
visitors. In a Forbes article “Tap the Power of Storytelling” dated 4 January
2014, Geoffrey Berwind, a professional
Storytelling Consultant and Trainer who’s created storytelling projects for
historic sites and provides consulting services for leaders and companies says
that “people buy from people they know, like and trust”, (like key opinion
leaders or influencers*) and that “great leaders recognize that human
connections need to go before concepts and strategies.”
Small is good too. Small has charm. We have hope.
