How Dubai is paying the price for letting in tourists

(CNN) — Take a passing glance at Dubai, and you may think life is back to normal. In recent weeks, the bustling city has been a sparkling attraction for tourists, especially from Europe, trying to escape the brutal winter and strict coronavirus lockdowns.

But as tens of thousands of visitors flocked there during its peak year-end season, the virus inevitably caught up with the city despite precautions aimed at limiting its spread. Cases began to rise, nearly quadrupling since November.

Even as Covid-19 gained a stronger foothold, the images out of Dubai — particularly from the Instagram feeds of influencers or celebrities — painted an image of a wide-open winter sun paradise.

For those back home in countries such as the UK, where most people are being told they cannot travel abroad because of the risk to health, these pictures caused consternation, drawing criticism of those enjoying themselves.

Furious reaction

For Danish tourist Emma Mathilde, who has frequently visited Dubai over the past few months, the backlash wasn’t surprising.

“In Europe, everyone is locked at home, it’s cold and it’s gray,” she says. “Dubai is the only place you can travel to, so everyone is going there. It’s sunny, you can go out to eat, and that’s why people get furious over why they have to stay home when other people are enjoying their lives.”

With a recent UK travel ban effectively cutting off what had in recent weeks become the world’s busiest airplane route, Dubai’s openness is clearly facing external challenges — an issue that’s helped prompt a rethink of Covid-19 measures.

That said, the emirate is determined to keep its tourism-reliant economy in business, and officials are unfazed about the recent bad press, confident that levels of compliance with Covid-19 precautions have so far been in keeping with expectations.

“We approach things in a very measured fashion, but it’s our philosophy that we should work through this pandemic,” Helal Saeed Al Marri, director general of Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, tells CNN.

“If we ask everybody to change their behavior 100%, it’s very unlikely to get full compliance. In our case, we’ve asked people to tweak their behavior, to learn to live in the new normal, and people have embraced that.”

Al Marri said the actions of just a few tourists shouldn’t tarnish Dubai’s reputation.

“If you walk in the street in Dubai, people are wearing masks. If someone isn’t wearing a mask, it won’t be the authorities that tell them to put a mask on, it’ll be a passerby, because that’s the way we’ve learned to live within this Covid era.”