One year after the pandemic forced a delay, Dubai is set to open its $7 billion Expo on a desert site the size of 600 football fields.
Having spent years preparing for the event, the city hopes that an exhibition featuring autonomous vehicles, a pavilion shaped like falcons and one with an original Pharaoh coffin will attract enough tourists to help solidify a nascent economic recovery.
Starting Friday, diplomats, dealmakers, artists and musicians will fly in from around the world. The city has stuck to its target of 25 million visits -- both virtually and in person -- and at a time when travel restrictions have slowed business across financial centers, the six-month long exhibition may even help to create a template for others to follow.
Dubai has shunned lockdowns since emerging from one last year, keeping its economy open and embarking on an ambitious vaccination drive. The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, has inoculated more than 80% of its population and infections rates have dropped. The country is now placed sixth on Bloomberg’s Resilience Rankings.
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