I guess living in Dubai for 20 years qualifies me as a die-hard expat. It also means that when I meet other ‘old timers’, we can chat for hours about the ways things were and how they have changed. I must admit to having been through a jaded phase of thinking that everything was better in the good old days, when Dubai was a relative village with half a million friendly inhabitants, when there were no parking meters or toll gates, and you could park almost anywhere on the sand in front of the building you were visiting.

Happily, I am now of the view that the new city is a pretty amazing place, despite these modern (in)conveniences, and I am excited to be playing a small part in its continued development. One can get blasé living in such a dynamic metropolis, where billions are thrown into the ground so quickly that new districts emerge almost in the blink of an eye.

We used to joke to our friends back home that we would go away for the weekend and find a new road to our house when we got back, which was actually true.

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My aunt Hermione Hobhouse, who recently passed away, was a respected architectural historian who wrote a famous book about the English builder, Thomas Cubitt (1788-1855). Having started his life as a simple carpenter, he became a speculative developer and was eventually responsible for constructing some of London’s most sought-after residential addresses, such as Belgrave and Eaton Squares, and even the eastern side of Buckingham Palace. I have realised that in my small way, as a hospitality consultant, I am also helping to build Dubai and other GCC cities, together with my clients and my fellow consultants and contractors — even if perhaps our names will not be as well-remembered as Cubitt’s.

For example, I have been working on a study for three small affordable hotels in the Culture Village project, which to date has been famous as the place where the Palazzo Versace Hotel will soon open its doors to the jet set. The Culture Village and indeed the whole Al Jaddaf district is rapidly becoming a reality, and will be characterised by the employment of ‘heritage-style’ architecture as a requisite for all buildings.My work has involved, predictably, doing a feasibility study, but also working alongside the projects’ architects and interior designers to make sure the hotels will work as efficiently as possible when the operations start, as well as being attractively differentiated from other offerings in the market.

Having invested months of my life into understanding this upcoming district, I can envisage what a nice place it will be in the future, just as Cubitt must have done, when he was planning parts of Belgravia. Not that Al Jaddaf will be so posh, but it will certainly be a large district filled solely with traditional Gulf-style buildings along a decent stretch of Dubai Creek, which will make it unique in the Gulf.

According to our research, there are nine hotels and hotel apartment buildings with 2558 keys in or near Al-Jaddaf currently, mostly luxury hotels like the Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Marriott and Raffles.

There’s also an interesting ‘design-budget’ hotel called Reflections, which has five types of guest rooms with different city design themes — New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Venice.

A further 15 known future hotels and hotel apartment buildings with 3703 keys are planned, including the aforementioned Palazzo Versace, as well as a fancy Anantara property on the Creek-front, and a bunch of mid-market properties.

In other words, this is yet another sub-district in Dubai’s hotel sector, emerging as a great place to stay that’s both near the airport, and well connected to other areas via main roads and the metro.

Expect to see special offer flyers and happy TripAdvisor reviews from hotels in this area very soon. This is how the hotel development process works: it starts on paper and ends up reality.

And if like me, you’re involved in any part of that process, from planning to operations, then you’re contributing to the growth of the wonderful city of Dubai, and yes, even making a little history.

Guy Wilkinson is a director of Viability, a hospitality and property consulting firm in Dubai. For more information, email: guy@viability.ae