What Europeans get wrong about Dubai

Before I moved to Dubai, I thought I understood what made the city attractive to entrepreneurs.

After working here since November 2024, I find that most of what matters to me in business sits outside the picture I had from Europe.

From a distance, some parts of Dubai are hard to miss: the towers, the luxury, the property market, entrepreneurs announcing their move, tax conversations and social media.

Those things exist.

After living and working here, they became some of the least interesting parts of the business story.

What changed the way I work came from somewhere less visible.

The visible version of Dubai

The image of Dubai that travels best is the one that is easiest to photograph.

Skyscrapers, cars, rooftop views and lifestyle content fit naturally on a phone screen.

The day-to-day reality of doing business here takes longer to show.

I do not deny that the visible version exists. I see it too.

It simply tells you relatively little about what a working day feels like when you run an agency and work across different markets.

The parts that interest me now are harder to photograph: the pace of conversations, the mix of nationalities around a meeting table, what clients expect from you and how quickly the market moves.

International business feels normal

This was probably the biggest adjustment for me, and the one I value most.

From my experience working primarily from Italy, "international expansion" often felt like a distinct strategic project with its own plan, budget and timeline.

In Dubai, working across countries, nationalities, cultures and markets can simply become part of an ordinary week.

The person across the table may come from one country, operate in another and serve customers across several regions.

Since moving, I have worked with UAE businesses, international companies and entrepreneurs from different countries on projects involving different markets.

That changes the default in your head.

I think more naturally about markets in the plural.

I think earlier about localisation, how positioning translates across cultures and whether an opportunity makes sense outside one country.

Europe is international in many ways.

What stood out to me in Dubai was the concentration: so much cross-border business in one place that, after a while, it stops feeling exceptional.

Speed raises the stakes

Dubai can feel fast.

In my experience, people are often open to meeting quickly, making introductions, exploring collaborations and moving conversations forward.

That does not make deals automatic or execution less important.

What speed changes is the cost of hesitation.

In a fast environment, slow replies, late proposals, delayed decisions and weak execution become more visible.

The opportunity may still be there.

Someone else may simply reach it first.

Living here made me more conscious of responsiveness, both personally and inside the businesses I work on.

Proximity matters more than networking

From the outside, networking in Dubai can look like a calendar full of events.

The value I found sits somewhere else.

It comes from being physically present.

You meet someone and then have the opportunity to meet again. An introduction can become a second conversation. Relationships can develop through repeated contact and eventually through actual business.

That kind of proximity is difficult to reproduce remotely.

A large contact list is still just a list.

I value relationships where there is trust, repeated interaction, knowledge of each other's work and a reason for the conversation to continue.

Living here made me value proximity more than networking itself.

Credibility has to be earned fast

One thing that surprised me is how quickly access can sometimes happen.

You can enter conversations, receive introductions and meet decision-makers relatively quickly.

Trust takes longer.

In a market where many people present themselves as founders, consultants, investors or experts, titles alone do very little.

I have become much more interested in track record, substance, execution, references and what has actually been built.

And I know the people sitting across from me look for the same things.

Service expectations are higher than I expected

In the part of the market where I operate, clients have many alternatives.

That makes weak details visible quickly.

I noticed the change in myself first.

I became more demanding about how our proposals look, how quickly the team responds, how clearly we communicate and how professional the overall experience feels from the client side.

At Mayor Digital I lead digital strategy, performance, client relationships and commercial conversations, while Barbara Francini leads PR, events and offline communication.

Across both sides of the business, responsiveness and presentation matter.

I would not generalise this into a statement that Dubai simply has "better service" than Europe.

That is not the point.

In the part of the market I operate in, the level of competition pushed my own standard higher.

Opportunity and noise arrive together

Dubai attracts ambitious people.

That creates ideas, new businesses, collaborations and constant movement.

It also creates a lot of self-promotion.

Sometimes the positioning is stronger than the business behind it.

I do not say that cynically.

Any environment that rewards ambition will naturally attract both substance and image.

That made me more careful about separating three things: visibility, credibility and execution.

They are not the same.

Someone can be highly visible without having built much.

Someone else can have a strong business without investing heavily in personal visibility.

For me, understanding that difference became increasingly important when deciding who to work with, listen to and build relationships with.

Competition comes with the opportunity

A market that attracts companies also attracts competitors.

Simply arriving in Dubai does not create differentiation.

A business still needs clear positioning, relevance, a strong offer, good service, reliable execution and a reputation that holds up.

Customers have choices.

That is part of what makes the market interesting in the first place.

The same level of activity that creates opportunity also means businesses have to earn attention continuously.

An international business takes more than an address

You need to understand customers who think and buy differently.

You need to adapt communication.

You need to build relationships across cultures.

And you need to deliver consistently when the people you serve come from different markets.

Dubai can give you exposure to that environment.

The company still has to develop the capability to operate inside it.

The misunderstanding I see most

From a distance, Dubai is often reduced to two simple interpretations.

For some people, it looks like a shortcut.

For others, it looks like a façade.

My experience has been more practical than either of those.

I see Dubai mainly as an environment.

An environment with an unusual concentration of international business, speed, opportunity, competition and noise.

It does not replace competence, strong fundamentals, credibility or execution.

It changes the conditions around them.

Living here made me less interested in whether Dubai is overrated or underrated.

Both questions feel too simple.

What matters to me is that it puts international business, ambition, competition and opportunity unusually close together.

What I do with that environment remains my responsibility.