What’s it like to visit Dubai now? COVID comfort as Expo arrives

The buzz around lunch time in Dubai’s financial center paints a clear picture of how the city’s dealing with the coronavirus pandemic: Business people are back in full swing, many restaurants have to be booked in advance, and luxury sports cars swarm the entrances of the area’s five-star hotels. It’s a far cry from last year’s empty parking lots and deserted office spaces.

If there is such a thing as pre-pandemic normalcy in 2021, Dubai is keen to display it. International tourism resumed more than a year ago, and the city has relatively lenient rules to combat the spread of Covid-19. That’s thanks to the fact that the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, is one of the world’s most vaccinated nations. According to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker, around 75% of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

Now, it is opening up to millions of visitors for the World Expo, which will take place in the outskirts of the city from Oct. 1 through March 31. The exhibition was delayed for a year due to the pandemic; Dubai anticipates it to attract 25 million visits, both virtually and in person.

The number is less eye-popping considering the scale of the Expo. The site is as large as 600 hundred football stadiums, filled with architectural spectacles from around 190 countries. The UAE’s is designed by Santiago Calatrava and will be shaped like a falcon in flight; the Canadian pavilion is a towering ring made of wood lattice with a “360 degree theater" at its center; and the Netherlands has built a cone-shaped vertical farm.

To avoid inciting a super spreader event, visitors will be required to adhere to the similar rules that apply when entering the country: they can either show vaccine cards or negative PCR tests taken within 72 hours. (When crossing the border, the vaccinated set must also provide a negative result, and stricter provisions apply to those coming from certain countries, including tests that are only valid for 48 hours and a requirement to quarantine until a second swab, taken at the airport, comes back clean.)

The hope is that Dubai can maintain its good track record—the entire UAE is currently registering below 500 new infections a day—even if the Expo crowds are as astronomical as the city hopes. The show, after all, is just one way Dubai is doubling down on tourism. Its easygoing public health measures and low case counts are also luring business travelers, convention goers, and leisure vacationers. After recording nearly 17 million international arrivals in 2019, Dubai expects that 27 million people will pass through the city in 2021—a goal it’s still far from reaching, with roughly 3 million visitors in the first seven months of the year—and more than 50 million in 2022.