Sustainability a major challenge for Dubai

Dubai: That Dubai is a brand in itself is not news anymore. The fast-growing city-state, with its iconic towers, sprawling malls with top-notch retail brands, white beaches and, above all, an openness, have captured the imagination of the world.

The diversified development model has served it well and has helped attract investors, professionals and tourists to make it a success story.

It is today a Dh200 billion brand if one can say so taking into account the gross domestic product (GDP) of the emirate in 2007.

But going forward, it has to sustain itself by integrating various sectors into it, marketing and branding analysts said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Dubai, acknowledging though that the business and government leaders are well aware of it.

"The good news is that there is clearly strategic thinking at the very highest level of business and government with both acting in close confidence to manage brand structuring and brand positioning," said David C. Schmittlein, dean and professor of marketing, MIT Sloan School of Management. "Most countries that is simply not the case."

But if that presents as an opportunity, it also represents a challenge, which Schmittlein believes that there is focus and coordination.

"Some of the elements of the brand image and brand positioning that has come to be associated with Dubai have been part of its last 10 years, but may be less part of the next 10 years and so some of the elements of brand building hopefully will continue, but there may be some uncertainty there," he said.

In building on its brand image, what Dubai has done for the past several years is to deliver on the promise that the brand has made, said Thomas Robertson, dean and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

"You have to have the product to back the brand," he said. "And Dubai has created services that are of value in the world market. Locating itself as a tourist destination, the value of the wonderful airport that Dubai has, the value of golf tournaments and tennis tournaments that it created, or Dubai with grand vision has tried to become the entertainment, the information capital, retail and health capital of the Gulf and delivered on that vision. There is an infrastructure that is indeed of value."

But as it moves forward, it would like to be known more than just a tourist destination, to be a world class service economy, and there is a good attention, feels Schmittlein.

There are positive elements in the Dubai brand - high growth, dynamic human capital economy, high service, and business and government are focusing and coordinating going forward, he said.

He points to two areas not integrated into the brand, but it's a work in progress.

"Education is one area that is clearly the focus but still is not integrated into a clear element of the brand right now. Technological innovation, again a very important element of governmental focus, not so much incorporated around the world into the brand right now, but the great news that there is a focus and a co-ordination."