Cape Town - More than 77 000 South Africans went to Dubai last year, either to stay for a few days or take a stopover on the way to another destination, Wendie White, the Dubai department of tourism director for southern Africa, told me last week.
She expects the number to be even higher for this year because in the first six months it was already 8.5 percent more than in the first half of last year. Some of these were business trips and some people were visiting friends and relatives – there are a million expatriates working in Dubai, including many South Africans.
Dubai is a fascinating place with a lot to see and do, and there are daily non-stop flights there from Cape Town as well as from Joburg and Durban.
Emirates Airline is operating one flight a day from Cape Town. There were two a day for much of the year, but Fouad Khaunye, its regional general manager for southern Africa, tells me the second flight has been temporarily suspended but will be back in December in time to bring people from all over the world here in our main tourism season. He said the suspension of the second flight was not due to lack of demand but because the aircraft is needed on other routes while some of Dubai’s fleet of Airbus A380s are being serviced.
Emirates has more A380s than any other airline and uses one on its Joburg route. The airline has three flights a day from Joburg all year round and offers connecting flights to destinations on every continent except Antarctica.
Emirates was set up by the ruling Al Maktoum family in Dubai to start a tourism industry there in readiness for when the oil that provided the emirate’s wealth ran out and, unlike most other rulers in the region, they ensured that the local population shared in the prosperity it has brought. Its existence has led to other industries being set up there.
Dubai’s example has been followed in neighbouring Qatar and Abu Dhabi, both of which started airlines and now have tourism industries and other activities. But Emirates is still the largest of the three airlines and is constantly starting new routes.
It used to be taken for granted that business travellers preferred direct, non-stop routes, but this has changed over the past few years.
Several business people, including some connected with tourism, tell me they prefer to travel by way of Dubai rather than taking one very long flight, because of the comfort of its modern aircraft, and because they enjoy a stopover there.
l A word of warning: best to avoid the United Arab Emirates if you’ve ever been convicted in absentia of a crime. UCT Professor Cyril Karabus, 77, is still being detained in Dubai while in transit for the death of a patient he had treated in Abu Dhabi 10 years ago.
He was not told that he faced charges and was tried and convicted in absentia of manslaughter and falsifying documents. - Sunday Argus