Eat Drink Stay Dubai Newsletter 90/w27

Hi Dubai friends,

Welcome to Week 27, Edition 90

Here’s your latest edition of Dubai news, deals & tips, every Friday, in 10 mins or less.

⛲ Dubai Fountain confirms opening date.

🌃 Night Swimming at Dubai beaches.

🏩 Jumeirah Al Naseem Flash Sale (40% off?)

💡 One Big Dubai Tip: Places to find staycation & hotel offers

🤷‍♂️ Are Dubai restaurants struggling?

🛒 Dubai Summer Surprises.

🇬🇧 Brits give thoughts about Iran situation.

✋ Another Palm Jumeirah hotel to change hands?

🚕 Flying Taxis complete test flight.

PS. You can always email me here also.

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DUBAI NEWS

With Summer in full flow, there are plenty of promotions around - such as these 7 activities where kids go free.

Be sure to keep across Dubai Summer Surprises 2025 website throughout the season (ends 31 August), as it will include all the discounts on shopping deals, promotions, activities and events.

This link will take you to the PDF brochure for DSS Phase 1.

If you’re interested what’s going on with the current Dubai Fountain maintenance, check out this BTS video from Emaar.

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Emaar have also confirmed the expected re-opening date of Dubai Fountain is Wednesday 01 October.

Dubai Duty Free has reported record-breaking sales with 5.34% YOY increase for the first half of 2025, with a turnover of $1.128 billion.

The top performing categories were perfumes, alcohol, cigarettes and tobacco, gold and confectionery.

Dubai has completed the first successful test flight of their air taxis.

Joby Aviation is collaborating with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) for approval, whilst also seeking certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), though it expects to secure approval first in Dubai.

Skyports are also involved in the joint venture, for provision of the ‘vertiports’.

KNOW MORE ABOUT DUBAI

Fancy a Night Swim at a Dubai Beach?

If the beaches in Dubai are too hot for you during summertime, there are three public beaches in the 'Jumeirah’ area available for night swimming.

For clarity, Jumeirah in this instance refers to the general area north of Madinat Jumeirah that encompasses Umm Suqeim 3, Umm Suqeim 2 and Jumeirah 3.

All are free of charge, and have LED lighting towers along with lifeguards. Abu Dhabi also offers Marsana Night Beach, although it’s chargeable.

Um Suqeim Public Beach is north of Madinat Jumeirah and Marsa Al Arab.

Jumeirah 2 Public Beach is north of the bridge across to Jumeirah Bay (ie Bulgari Resort), and south of 3 Fils and Mercato Beach.

Brits Share Insights on Dubai and Reflections on Iran Situation

The Telegraph had an article this week that’s worth a read, talking about British expats and residents in Dubai and their views about the current situation with Iran amidst the wider increase in Brits moving to Dubai.

As a measure of how more Brits are moving to Dubai, The British Chamber of Commerce in Dubai adds between 20-40 new businesses each month, and Dubai Chamber of Commerce took on almost 700 new UK companies in the first three months of the year.

Whilst I would always advocate against oversimplification of complex things, this chap from the interview makes a great point. ⤵️

🔗 “The expats choosing proximity to Iran over a life in Britain” (The Telegraph)

HOTEL OFFERS

Jumeirah Limited Time Summer Exclusive

Jumeirah tend to have their Special Offers either on one central landing page or a property specific page.

For example, Jumeirah Al Naseem has this Special Offers page (currently with 15 offers). These offers may be for the hotel, spa or F&B outlets.

If you are quick, they currently have a flash sale called “Limited Time Summer Exclusive” for non-refundable rates booked by 06 July. Valid for stays from 03 July through 12 October.

Offer benefits include 40% savings on rates, access to Wild Wadi, access to Dubai Parks and Resorts (for stays of 3 or more nights)

🔗 Jumeirah Offers

ONE BIG DUBAI TIP

(Some) Places to Find Dubai Hotel Offers (e.g. Staycations)

Staycation offers seem everywhere in Dubai during the Summer, and whilst it’s possible to find some deals, do check the small-print of offers.

This is especially relevant to summer staycation promotions as Dubai hotels aim a lot of the staycations at locals, residents or GCC residents and you will often need to provide supporting documentation at check-in to prove eligibility.

Some reports suggest even more UAE residents may turn to staycations over the summer due to the Iran situation and the impact it’s having on long-haul travel with delays, cancellations, longer flights etc.

Where to Look for (Staycation) Offers

As a general tip, you can find staycation offers in several places (and they may not be in all of them of the same time!).

1. Property-specific pages (such as the Jumeirah Al Naseem one above or Atlantis The Palm Dubai)

2. Chain-specific pages (e.g. if you Google “staycation Dubai” you will likely be led to landing pages, maybe even paid ads to match keywords, for the chain rather than specific hotels) ⤵️

3. Local media such as Time Out Dubai or What’s On will often have either ‘listicles’ collating several offers, or property-specific offers (that may or may not be sponsored posts).

4. Social media - inc. mailing lists - may publish staycations, flash sales and the like sometimes as short notice campaigns and to certain audiences, so it’s worth following particular hotels or signing up to their email list.

5. Loyalty programs - chains such as Marriott will often either have their own general offers (i.e. across regions, brands, countries, cities etc.) or via individual property pages. For example, Marriott have their main Special Offers & Travel Deals page but also, if you look at specific hotels, when they list rates many will often have their own promotions (Grosvenor House is a good example) under ‘Deals and Packages’ ⤵️.

Note - you may need to select ‘see more packages’ via the drop-down selection, as the default display may only list a handful of the different rate conditions/deals and packages, as this staycation offer was not immediately visible until clicking to expand.

Heads-Up: Posting Staycation Deals Over the Summer

Over the coming weeks, I’ll drop a few links to staycation offers as they pop up, such as this one for SLS Dubai.

As always, do shop around - staycations may not always be the best deal around, and there’s the usual ‘caveat emptor’ (“buyer beware”) about managing expectations about operations, facilities, staffing, last-minute changes etc. around Dubai hotels during summer.

Note - some links may seem like they have been published previously, but do keep checking them all the same because many (such as the one below) are likely to ‘landing pages’ or listicles that will be updated and new ones added.

🔗 16 Dubai staycation deals (Time Out)

🔗 Stay & Play, Dine & Unwind Summer Offers (Visit Dubai) - 2 different offers, Stay & Play is free attraction passes for two guests, Dine & Unwind is attractions, spa & dinner experience for one guest.

🔗 Staycation deals as low as 100 AED (Gulf Business)

Conclusion

Regular readers will know what I’m going to say at this point, but I’ll stay say it for either those at the back, or the forgetful ones 🥲

• Always, always, always shop around

• Check rate conditions (an apparent discount may just be a restrictive rate condition, such as advance payment or non-refundable)

• ‘Slice & Dice’ the deal (i.e. compare like for like to prove that it is a deal, and you’re not just being sold to).

• Don’t just be drawn by the potential savings; compare the price against usual, gettable rates (as sometimes flash sales claim discounts but the percentage savings they claim may be from elevated above usual rates) and DO consider ‘achieved value’ vs ‘perceived value’ (i.e. they may say they have 12 restaurants, but in summer, 6 may be closed!)

HOTEL NEWS

Another Palm Jumeirah Hotel to Change Ownership?

Bloomberg report Sofitel Dubai The Palm Hotel may be subject to a bid from Brookfield Asset Management (web archive version here). The hotel is rumoured to be valued around 2 billion AED or $545 million.

Interesting fact: according to Knight Frank, there have been at least 15 local hotels such as Fairmont Palm Dubai and VOCO Bonnington that have changed owners in the last 30 months - more than all transactions in the last decade!

From time to time, I may post articles about Dubai hotels to help give insight about a property. It could be leadership changes such as a new General Manager, or just to notify about particular positions/names (that may be handy for future reference), or some interesting content or fact about the property eg a refurbishment.

As the PR industry in Dubai is very active in pushing out ‘news’, it goes without saying (or should do) some of the ‘articles’ aren’t really that informative, and may just be PR ‘guff’.

I recently read this article about Hilton Dubai Jumeirah and Hilton Dubai The Walk, with its reference to ‘Signaling a New Era’ (sp?) as I thought it may reference the current closure of Hilton Dubai Jumeirah and what the planned improvements may look like.

Little did I realise I was getting a promotional piece that appears to have been written by some Hollywood publicist. The copy is amazing, and so overtly positive that it seems to have neglected to mention what the hotel may be looking to do to to justify manifesting such awesomeness, if zingers like this are anything to go by :-

• “Will this appointment spark a new wave of innovation across the UAE’s hospitality growth?”

• “This isn’t just a career move. It’s a strategic maneuver set to ripple through Dubai’s luxury hospitality industry.”

Feels a bit David Brent meets Alan Partridge, sadly without the “Aha!”

Wynn Al Marjan Island at Ras Al Khaimah, heavily expected to be first legal gaming resort within the UAE, has announced it will launch a hotel called Enclave within the resort.

Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton must have read last week’s edition and fancied popping into Radisson Blu, Dubai Media City, as he’s hosting a meet-and-greet event and dining experience there on Monday 07 July.

FOOD AND DRINK

Dubai’s Restaurant Scene Is Under the Cosh. Or Is It?

Dubai has more food and drink establishments (around 13,000) per capita than any major city except Paris. That saturation, along with high costs and reduced footfall is increasingly making for a more challenging environment for restaurants.

The ratio of expats/residents to Emirati citizens is around 9:1, and only Vatican City has a higher proportion of foreign-born residents.

Annual rents in the popular areas such as Downtown can be higher than $100 per square foot, and Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism issued close to 1,200 new restaurant licences last year. Traffic also plays a part as congestion rises, with more customers turning to the convenience of delivery apps.

Personally, I’m not so sure if the bubble is about to burst, but maybe it’s not really fair to compare in general terms. Some restaurants seem to be part of Dubai’s fabric and may continue to be around for ages, and of course it depends if we’re talking about fine dining vs somewhere like Ravi’s. Whilst similar challenges will affect them all, the celebrity-chef concept still seems to struggle (IMO) in terms of longevity, especially as more homegrown concepts achieve success.

Even with the rising costs, a lot of restaurants tend to be stuck in a spiral of pumping money into PR as well as discounting/promotions, but then struggle to move away onto their own two feet organically in terms of customers and revenue. Some venues for instance, rely on apps like Entertainer to bring customers in but they’re coming for the discounts, rather than the venue, and then may move onto the next deal.

I’d also suggest the ‘elephant in the room’ in some cases is the reliance on bloggers/influencers and the ‘media event’ market, as it’s always a matter of great debate if that translates to a Return on Investment (ROI).