Frank Kane’s notebook: a busy week, with VIPs at the Ritz, a prince in town, and birthday anarchy

Frank Kane's notebook: a busy week, with VIPs at the Ritz, Prince Harry in town, and fifth birthday party anarchy.

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I have seldom seen Dubai so busily hectic. The upcoming Eid Al Adha holiday has effectively compressed the always busy month of October into three weeks, and the city is bulging at the seams.

Cityscape, Gitex, the visit of a senior British royal, as well as a stack of other events have brought increased congestion to the roads, and virtual gridlock to the area around the World Trade Centre roundabout.

My old barometer of economic activity in Dubai – the time it takes to find a parking place in the Dubai International Financial Centre car park – has set new records.

A friend of mine described a 20-minute queue to get in, followed by another 20 minutes circling to find a space. This was at 9am. He just scraped in, but for many in the tailback outside, it was a forlorn hope.

DIFC car-park queues, soaring property prices, bulging conferences, new glittering developments announced almost on a daily basis ... if you needed any further confirmation that Dubai is well and truly back, there it is.

It reminds me very much of the summer of 2008 all over again.

One extra ingredient this time, missing back then, is the added impetus to the Dubai business scene injected by the strategy to become the global capital of the Islamic economy.

A top-level crowd of VIPs gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in DIFC last Saturday to hear the latest: an accelerated programme to achieve “global Islamic capital” status, and an ambitious 46 targets to get there.

Over the next couple of months, the Islamic economy will rise to the top of the global business agenda, with power gatherings in London and Dubai – the latter billed as the “Islamic Davos” – to discuss the matter.

At a rather more low-key gathering in Dubai’s Media City last week, journalists heard of an unexpected and unusual area for potential halal business. Hani Lashin runs the Al Jawhara hotel chain, providing visitors with family-friendly facilities in an Islamic atmosphere cosmopolitan Dubai.

“We’re doing very good business in two sectors we didn’t really expect: flight crews and footballers,” Mr Lashin revealed.

Neither group is especially noted for its fondness for a good book and an early night, but their employers are apparently keen to ensure maximum performance in their demanding professions. Mr Lashin’s halal hotels offer far less temptation that other establishments, apparently.

The temptation on offer at the JW Marriott Marquis hotel the other night was in the form of glittering auction items donated by sponsors and well-wishers to raise money for Sentebele, the charity for HIV- infected children set up by Prince Harry of Wales.

Polo weekends in the English home counties, a VIP trip to the Dubai World Cup horse race, some stunning art and jewellery, were all up to the highest bidder.

Also on offer was a luxury trip to Emirates Stadium to see an Arsenal football match. Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that my wallet remained firmly closed.

Amid all this hectic activity, I managed to get away for a few hours on Saturday to celebrate the fifth birthday of my beautiful daughter Amira.

She is well into the “friends” stage of her young life, and it seemed that le tout Dubai, five years and under, had been invited. It was sheer anarchy, but of the most enjoyable kind.

After two hours of cuddly animals, fashion parades, musical chairs, cake-cutting and Happy Birthday singing, I was almost looking forward to the trip back to the Trade Centre roundabout.

fkane@thenational.ae