Patience and pressure

Happy hump day, friends. Let’s talk about tourism, which today is earning its place in the headlines as the numbers coming out of Dubai tell a story that’s equal parts patience and pressure. What happens to the Gulf’s biggest hospitality engine tends to ripple outward to the rest of the region, so it’s one to keep an eye on.

Dubai’s hospitality market could start to recover from 4Q onward as international connectivity improves and the winter season lifts demand, Cavendish Maxwell says in its latest hospitality report. The catch is that the rebound is arriving at the exact moment a heavy wave of luxury supply hits the market — a cruel bit of timing for the very segment that took the hardest hit during this year’s slowdown.

The full-year scoreboard will be one to file under “let’s not dwell”: Occupancy is forecast at 60.4-66.2%, with average daily rates at AED 600-675, and Dubai International Airport (DXB) passenger traffic at 67.6-79.3 mn — all below 2025 levels. Analysts previously told us that a full recovery in tourism flows would not come before 2029, so consider this the long, patient middle of the story rather than the turn.

That all makes the next data point a happy counterpoint: The UAE continues to be one of the world’s most attractive destinations for expats, ranking fourth globally behind Panama, Mexico, and Thailand, according to InterNations’ 2026 Expat survey. The Emirates was the highest-ranked country in the Middle East, ahead of established expat hubs including Spain, Singapore, and Portugal. The country also topped the global leaderboard for career prospects, state of the economy, and ease of arriving and getting on with life without speaking the local language.

And in the AI world: Anthropic’s pre-IPO revolving credit facility is set to rise above its roughly USD 10 bn target, as Wall Street banks line up to lend massive sums to signal confidence and clinch a slice of one of the largest tech IPOs in history. The terms are still under negotiation, and the company could choose to cap or reduce the credit line. We’ll have more as the week unfolds. –Salma