BBC - Around the World - Ariel's 'Foreign Bureau' - 9 August 2005 - by Hani Soubra, BBC World Sales manager, Dubai

by Hani Soubra, BBC World Sales manager, Dubai, August 9 2005

Anybody who has been here for the last decade or so cannot but marvel at the growth that the city of Dubai has achieved.

People who leave Dubai for a few weeks on vacation or on business or for a training course can easily find on their return that a new tower has emerged, or a new island has been planned.

Working in this city is fun (at least for me; I cannot speak for the rest of the team). Every day there is some new development whether it is real estate, the stock market, multi-billion dollar projects or the entertainment business.

Of course, we in the BBC World Dubai office are at the centre of it all and we cannot isolate ourselves from the expansion plans, even if we wanted to. We are a busy office.

Probably out of the entire BBC, we are the only office that has us (air times sales), the business news family (represented by the Middle East Business Report), and the World Service, soon to have the Persian service from here, under one roof. It is a true and genuine BBC One place.

I am a strong advocate of this approach as it creates more depth for our presence in the region, and contributes positively to the overall success of the different operations.

I am BBC World’s regional sales manager for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, and, with my small but extremely efficient team, I get involved in a variety of marketing and business development activities.

As with any business encounters there are plenty of challenges. A big thrill is to be competing with CNN, in what is regarded as the American broadcaster’s backyard.

Everybody here remembers CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War in 1991, particularly the reporting of veteran journalist Peter Arnett. Those reports were CNN’s road to stardom in Dubai.

We have managed to achieve some phenomenal breakthroughs and there are now pieces of research that show BBC World on a level with CNN in terms of sales of the two services.

Given the enormous efforts we are making to market BBC World, and partly because of increasing anti-American feeling in this part of the world, we should become global tv market leaders in this region.

This is a city that lives on services and not on oil. Hotels are impeccable, and the food is fantastic. Amid this rosy picture, we do have a small issue with the weather.

Actually, it is not a small issue, because the humidity and temperatures can be suffocating from June until mid-September.

During these months the temperature can exceed 45 degrees, with more than 90 percent humidity. However, and thank God for his greatest gift to humanity, this is an air conditioned nation and during these extreme conditions we keep ourselves cool indoors.

In fact, Dubai is taking the cool nation idea a step further by building a 150 metre ski slope in one of the shopping malls. It is due to open at the end of the year and then we will be skiing in the desert!