Once known primarily for its towering skyscrapers and world-class shopping malls, Dubai has evolved into a multifaceted tourism powerhouse, where history, culture, and sustainability seamlessly blend with luxury.

This transformation is not just reshaping visitor expectations but redefining the very essence of hospitality in the region. Dubai, in particular, is attracting a growing number of visitors eager to explore historical and cultural experiences.

According to data released by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), Dubai welcomed 18.72 million international overnight visitors from January to December 2024, registering a 9 per cent year-over-year (YoY) increase from the previous record of 17.15 million in 2023.

It’s no doubt that Dubai’s strong reputation for safe travel, hosting major international events, and strong government support has contributed to the city’s attractiveness.

This growth is further reinforced by the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 to strengthen further the emirate’s position as one of the best cities to visit, live, and work.

Within this surge in visitor numbers, the hospitality sector faces the challenge of maintaining the right balance between exclusivity and catering to a diverse market. Luxury hotels have always been a significant part of the UAE’s hospitality landscape. However, there is a growing demand for boutique and lifestyle hotels offering unique experiences and personalised services.

Consequently, Dubai’s hospitality sector is tasked with catering to an ever-evolving visitor profile and adjusting to global uncertainties, such as economic fluctuations and unforeseen disruptions, which affect travel patterns, spending habits, and consumer behavior. Remarkably, Dubai has stepped up to the challenge, reinventing itself and embracing the demand for responsible, curated cultural experiences combined with eco-friendly practices.

A shift to sustainable tourism

The city’s commitment to sustainability is evident as hotels and resorts consider environmental impact in every facet of their operations, including energy-efficient architecture and initiatives aimed at reducing energy and water consumption. This reflects a sense of corporate responsibility but also appeals to the changing preferences of a conscientious global traveler.

More specifically, there is a shift to eco-friendly experiences, like desert resorts and renewable energy projects. Restaurants and food outlets are also adopting eco-friendly practices by incorporating local and organic produce into their menus, supporting sustainable agriculture, and reducing their carbon footprint.

Many hotels and resorts are incorporating wellness-focused amenities and experiences into their offerings to cater to the growing segment of travellers seeking rejuvenation – but with a local touch. In addition, hotels are increasingly looking into healthy food options, fitness classes, spa treatments, and tranquil spaces for relaxation.

Infrastructure investments to support sustainability

Supporting the shift to eco-conscious travel involves investing in the proper infrastructure for it. Dubai is not a stranger to build infrastructure successfully from the ground up, with its hospitality sector playing a crucial role in the city’s tourism success. By the end of December 2024, Dubai’s hotel inventory had expanded to 154,016 rooms across 832 establishments, compared to 150,291 rooms in 2023.

The occupancy rate increased from 77.1 to 77.7 per cent, and the Average Daily Rate (ADR) increased from Dhs654.4 to Dhs666, reflecting the growing demand and the sector’s ongoing contribution to Dubai’s position as a top global destination.

Many of these hotels have embedded technological advancements to enhance the guest experience and support their sustainability ambitions. Data and analytics have become essential tools for hospitality businesses to make informed decisions about everything, from marketing campaigns to menu development.

We now see businesses collecting and analysing data to tap into the workings of customer preferences and trends. Smart hotels that incorporate automation and connectivity to create seamless and intuitive experiences are gaining prominence. This includes offering customised amenities, recommendations, décor, menus, and personalised services based on guest data and preferences. These technology investments have paid off, as KPMG’s latest Dubai Hospitality Report shows that an overwhelming majority, 94 per cent, of respondents were satisfied with their hotel stay in Dubai.

Navigating challenges

Amidst this impressive growth, Dubai’s hospitality sector is navigating a dynamic landscape marked by rising operating costs, increased competition from short-term rentals, and the need for continuous investment in technology and talent. Global economic uncertainty and evolving consumer preferences for sustainability, wellness, and authentic local experiences add a layer of complexity to the hospitality sector.

Additionally, seasonality remains a challenge, as with any market, with fluctuating demand between peak and off-peak months prompting hotels to refine their strategies and optimise operations year-round. Yet, these challenges have become catalysts for innovation, pushing businesses to rethink traditional models, diversify their services, and develop guest experiences beyond the norm.

A bright future ahead

The diversification of Dubai’s hospitality industry is expected to drive it forward in the mid-term. As new types of accommodation, restaurants, and entertainment venues join the mix, this diversification will cater to a wide range of tourists and residents, from budget-conscious travelers to luxury seekers. According to estimates, 11,300 new hotel rooms are expected to open in Dubai by 2027.

Guests are expected to become more price-sensitive. Consequently, hotels will adjust their prices and focus on numbers rather than relying solely on high-spending customers. The price correction could also affect mid-range and budget hotels, reducing their rates to maintain higher occupancy and stay competitive.

Regardless, Dubai’s hospitality industry is poised for continued growth this year. As the city aims to become the world’s most-visited city by 2025, the hospitality sector must think beyond numbers. The future belongs to those who innovate, embrace sustainability, and craft experiences that leave a lasting imprint on travellers’ minds and hearts. The question is: What will this next wave of transformation look like?

The writer is a partner and head of Real Estate at KPMG Lower Gulf.

Sukoon Insurance has acknowledged the latest bulletin issued by S&P Global Ratings, which reaffirmed the company’s stable outlook and solid standing in the market. The report underscores Sukoon’s continued ability to execute its long-term strategic plans and maintain strong financial performance, despite the ongoing CEO leadership transition.

According to S&P, Sukoon is expected to sustain its diversification efforts both within the UAE and internationally, guided by its board of directors. The agency identified several short- to medium-term growth drivers, including initiatives under Sukoon Takaful, the Lloyd’s syndicate 2880, inward treaty reinsurance, individual life insurance, and the Sukoon Workplace Savings Solution, which serves as an end-of-service gratuity programme. The bulletin also noted that Sukoon’s performance in the first half of 2025 exceeded expectations.

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“The S&P Global Ratings statement is a strong testament to the fundamental strength of our business and the clear vision of our long-term strategy,” said Hammad Khan, Sukoon’s interim CEO and chief financial officer. “Our first-half performance, with a 20 per cent growth in insurance revenue and a 52 per cent increase in net profits, demonstrates the resilience and effectiveness of our team and business model. We are fully committed to building on this momentum and are confident in our ability to deliver continued value for our customers, partners, and shareholders.”

S&P also credited the company’s transformation to the leadership of Jean-Louis Laurent Josi, who took over as CEO in 2018. Under his direction, Sukoon underwent significant changes, including a corporate rebranding, the acquisition of Sukoon Takaful, and the successful integration of life insurance portfolios from Generali and Chubb in the UAE.

For the first half of 2025, Sukoon reported robust financial results, with insurance revenue reaching Dhs3.1bn and net profits climbing to Dhs192m. S&P Global Ratings assessed the company as having strong potential to maintain sustainable and profitable growth moving forward.

From its new headquarters in Dubai, Nasdaq-listed VEON is steering a bold transformation: from a traditional telecom operator to a digital ecosystem powerhouse.

With operations across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan — markets home to more than 500 million people — VEON is delivering services that go far beyond connectivity.

Under CEO Kaan Terzioğlu’s leadership, the company is targeting 50 per cent of its revenue to come from non-telecom digital services within the next three years, leveraging local talent, language-first AI, and inclusive platforms to drive impact.

We spoke with Terzioğlu about VEON’s digital strategy, its move to the UAE, and the vision behind creating “digital nations”.

You moved VEON’s headquarters to Dubai last year. What was the rationale?

The move was driven by Dubai’s operational excellence, especially during the post-COVID recovery. Its global connectivity, safety, and pro-business environment made it the right fit.

By December 2024, we had officially completed the relocation. Today, VEON is the largest Nasdaq-listed company headquartered in Dubai, and we’ve successfully recruited global talent attracted to the UAE’s lifestyle and infrastructure.

VEON operates in some of the world’s most complex markets. How do you ensure business continuity and growth?

We operate in frontier markets with significant potential: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. These regions are underserved in areas like financial inclusion, education, and healthcare.

Our strategy is to deliver relevant, localised digital services. We maintain a unified strategic vision but empower local execution — each operating company has its own board and independent directors to ensure governance and responsiveness.

Give us more details about VEON’s financial and entertainment services, especially in markets like Pakistan, and how these contribute to financial inclusion and community progress?

In our operating countries, more than one in three people has never had a bank relationship, over 60 per cent don’t have a credit card, and over 70 per cent haven’t had a line of credit. This creates a huge opportunity for financial inclusion.

In Pakistan, our JazzCash digital wallet handles over 10 per cent of the country’s GDP transactions, reaching over 20 million people monthly from a customer base of 50 million.

We issue 141,000 loans daily. These are small loans, like $30 for a taxi driver to fix a tire or a housewife to buy flour to sell cookies. These enable communities to progress and be financially included. We will deploy financial services in all our countries, with success in Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

We have 160 million telecom customers, 40 million monthly financial services customers, and an additional 40 million consuming entertainment services.

Tamasha is Pakistan’s number one OTT platform with 22 million monthly users, and we have similar platforms like Toffee in Bangladesh and Kino in Uzbekistan.

Our philosophy is simple: our countries are data-producing, and it’s vital to process this data locally to create digital services, jobs, and taxes.

We must stop selling raw data and instead provide relevant digital services: financial services, entertainment, education, and healthcare.

Can you elaborate on your transformation into a digital ecosystem operator?

In Pakistan, through our subsidiary Jazz, we operate JazzCash, the country’s leading mobile wallet with nearly 20 million active users and over 171,000 merchant partners. It processes micro loans daily.

We also offer Tamasha, Pakistan’s leading OTT streaming platform with over 22 million monthly active users, and Garaj, our enterprise cloud and cybersecurity platform.

In Bangladesh, our brand Banglalink has launched Toffee, an ad-supported OTT platform with millions of users.

In Uzbekistan, Beeline Uzbekistan runs the Kino streaming service, while Beeline Kazakhstan offers Beeline TV and educational tools built with our in-house tech company QazCode.

In Kazakhstan, QazCode developed a Kazakh-language large language model (LLM) and an AI-powered tutoring assistant that helps school students learn, self-assess, and even earn certifications.

VEON is also active in digital healthcare. Tell us more about that.

In Ukraine, our operating company Kyivstar runs the Helsi platform, which reaches around 28 million users. It offers telemedicine, diagnostics, and medicine delivery. Especially during the crisis, it has been critical in maintaining access to healthcare.

We see platforms like Helsi as essential in redefining what a telecom company can be, delivering real-world impact beyond data and voice.

How do digital services reflect on your revenue mix?

Digital services account for around 15 per cent of our revenue today and are growing by about 1 per cent per quarter.

Our goal is to reach 50 per cent digital revenue within the next three years. We’ve built three technology development companies — QazCode in Kazakhstan, plus teams in Uzbekistan and Ukraine, which allow us to create apps and platforms in-house and at scale.

What’s your approach to AI and local-language innovation?

Global AI platforms often overlook languages like Kazakh, Uzbek, or Bangla. That’s where we step in.

In Kazakhstan, QazCode developed a Kazakh-language large language model (LLM) and an AI-powered tutoring assistant that helps school students learn, self-assess, and even earn certifications.

We’re pushing for digital sovereignty — tools built by locals, for locals.

Are you eyeing expansion into new markets?

Yes, in two ways. First, we want to serve our diaspora. Millions of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis live in the GCC, the UK, and beyond — these are future users of our digital finance or healthcare services.

Second, we see potential in markets like Iraq and Syria, where we would consider expansion when regulatory clarity and stability improve.

What are the leadership values that drive VEON and your personal philosophy?

Everything we do is rooted in purpose and clarity. Purpose means using our platform to improve lives, be it enabling a small loan, delivering a medical consultation, or helping students learn.

Clarity means being decisive, especially in complex environments. Combined, these principles ensure our teams stay focused and ethical while delivering at scale.

In the blink of an eye we have made it to the first half of 2025, and Dubai’s real estate market is not only outperforming expectations – it’s evolving with a deeper sense of purpose.

We saw nearly 99,000 property transactions in just six months, a record-breaking number that speaks volumes about investor confidence. But what fascinates me more than the data is the shift in mindset. Behind those transactions are people asking questions that go far beyond square footage and ROI. They’re asking about where to raise their children, how the healthcare system functions, and what kind of life they can build here. That tells me this market is growing in maturity, not just volume.

Buyers today are far more diverse nationally, financially, and emotionally. I’ve met families from across Europe – Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands – many of whom had never previously considered Dubai. What’s changed? It’s not just about opportunity anymore; it’s about lifestyle, stability, and the genuine intention to make Dubai a long-term home.

This shift isn’t confined to residential property alone. For the first time in nearly twenty years, I’ve had the opportunity to launch off-plan commercial buildings in Motor City, JVC, and Business Bay.

The response has been electric. Entrepreneurs are looking for practical, well-sized Grade A spaces to set up businesses here. It’s clear that Dubai’s reputation as a commercial hub is being translated into real, bricks-and-mortar investment.

The question that often follows such growth is whether prices will correct itself. My honest opinion? Yes, but modestly, and selectively.

Read: Investors are rushing to Dubai: Here’s why you shouldn’t wait

Prime and emerging areas will remain robust due to limited supply and sustained demand, especially as Dubai’s population nears the 4 million mark and continues rising. Where we might see softening is in less strategic locations or from developers who have failed to deliver on promised lifestyle value. There’s been some buzz about a slight dip in off-plan activity, but this is not a downturn – it’s a recalibration.

Not all families moving to Dubai are looking for ready homes – they’re taking the time to rent, understand communities, and buy with more clarity.

Meanwhile, off-plan options remain attractive to international buyers dealing with cross-border finance limitations, thanks to flexible payment structures. Both segments are strong, just driven by different needs.

Finally, the recently announced First-Time Home Buyer initiative is a game-changer. This new approach aims to make property ownership more accessible for residents by offering priority access to new launches, preferential pricing, and flexible payment plans. Eligible buyers – UAE residents over 18 who don’t own freehold property in Dubai – can also benefit from tailored mortgage solutions and interest-free installments on registration fees.

It’s a brilliant move toward encouraging homeownership among mid-income residents and cultivating long-term stability. I see this resonating not just with young professionals but with families exploring how to support their adult children onto the property ladder.

It’s another example of how Dubai is proactively shaping a market that’s resilient, inclusive, and ready for the future.

So yes, the numbers are thrilling, but the real story is quieter and more powerful – it’s the story of people choosing to stay, to build, and to belong. That’s what makes Dubai’s real estate scene in 2025 not just impressive, but profoundly meaningful.

As GPS disruptions escalate across the Middle East, affecting everything from flights to smartphones, the risks to national security and economic stability are mounting.

Gulf Business speaks with Luca Ferrara, GM of AQNav at SandboxAQ, about why GPS has become aviation’s single point of failure — and how their new quantum-based navigation system, recently tested with Airbus, could offer the Gulf a strategic edge in aviation resilience.

GPS disruptions have made headlines in the Middle East recently, with incidents affecting shipping, aviation, and even personal devices. How serious is this threat, and what risks does it pose to regional economies and safety?

It’s far more serious and taking place to a far greater degree than many people realise. Many commercial flights lose satellite signals mid-air, and when tensions in the region flared up recently, we even saw people in the UAE complain about their phones’ clocks and maps being impacted.

What makes this especially urgent for the Gulf is how much of the economy and infrastructure depends on GPS. Every oil shipment, every aircraft, every logistics hub, all of it depends today on the signals from GPS satellites. And when these signals are jammed or spoofed the ripple effects can jeopardise safety, national security, and public trust.

Why has GPS become such a critical vulnerability for aviation, and why is it often described as a single point of failure? Don’t reliable fallbacks already exist?

It’s not an exaggeration to say that presently, GPS is the single most important navigation tool globally, especially for aviation. But in case of failure, the fallbacks deployed at present are not built for the scale and complexity of modern air traffic.

If a plane loses GPS, pilots have to revert to radar and radio communication with control towers, which are already under strain. They also switch to inertial navigation which drifts over time, like a spinning top wobbling out of balance.

Beyond GPS jamming there is also GPS spoofing, where the pilot is not aware that they are navigating with a misdirected fake GPS signal. That’s even more dangerous because you don’t even know you’re off course.

SandboxAQ and Airbus recently announced the successful completion of comprehensive real-world trials of AQNav, a GPS-independent alternative. Can you explain how it works and why it offers greater resilience?

Absolutely. The system we’ve pioneered, AQNav, takes a radically different approach to positioning, inspired by nature. Birds and whales have been navigating vast distances for millennia by sensing the Earth’s magnetic field.

Today we have the technology to achieve biomimicry of this capability. At SandboxAQ, we are using ultra-sensitive quantum sensors to detect the changes in the magnetic field as a plane flies. Then we combined that with AI-powered software running on compact, low-power GPUs, to compare the detected magnetic field with the magnetic map of the Earth.

All this is done without reliance on any external sources such as satellites. It’s entirely self-contained, about the size of a toaster, passive (so it can’t be jammed or intercepted), and inherently resilient to spoofing. Everything happens inside the device. That’s the beauty of it — simple, elegant, and resilient.

Your testing shows AQNav met FAA standards across more than 100 flights. What do these results tell us about its commercial viability and reliability?

Those results give us enormous confidence in both the technology and its readiness for real-world use. Over more than 100 flights, across diverse geographies and conditions, AQNav consistently showed performance that could satisfy FAA standards known as RNP1 and RNP2.

In total, we logged over 44,000 kilometres, which is more than the circumference of the Earth. And we did all this without GPS. That’s proof not just of the science, but of the commercial viability. The system is already being tested with the biggest players in the industry — Airbus, Boeing, and the US Air Force.

Why are you inviting Middle East airlines and governments to participate in the next phase of testing? How can the region take a leading role in adopting this technology?

The Gulf is uniquely positioned to lead here. This region sits at the crossroads of global air travel, is home to some of the fastest growing airlines and logistics hubs in the world. At the same time, given ongoing geopolitical issues, it is also a region that faces some of the highest levels of GPS interference globally.

This combination of high stakes and strong growth makes the Gulf the perfect proving ground for resilient navigation. By partnering with us early, Gulf region airlines and governments can help shape the future of aviation safety, sovereignty, and resilience.