Tourists rate Dubai taxis, shopping to top list

Taxis and shopping are the two glittering jewels in Dubai’s touristic offerings, according to tens of thousands of travel junkies.

Dubai has featured in the two categories of important qualities as rated by more than 75,000 people on popular travel website TripAdvisor. The website rated the 40 most major tourist cities in the world on the basis of: friendliest locals, friendliest taxi drivers, best taxi services, cleanest streets, ease of getting around, best public transport, best value for money, best shopping and safest city. Dubai ranked third in the best taxi services and best shopping, behind Tokyo and Singapore, and New York and Bangkok, respectively. RTA Public Transport Agency CEO Eisa Abdul Rahman Al Dosari, who is in charge of Dubai’s more than 8000 taxis said the organisation was proud of the “global accomplishment”, which pitched the city above others with much more established taxi services.

“It is quite thrilling to see Dubai ranking ahead of established metropolitan cities that have decades of practice.”

He said the speed of attending to callers intending to book taxis was as low as 30 seconds, with accurate bookings and speedy service. Last year there were more than 19,000 calls per day. “The service offered by taxicabs in Dubai is diverse and capable of meeting the requirements of disabled passengers, as well as the Ladies Taxi, Hatta Taxi, Honest Hands Taxi and the Baby Seats service offered on demand,” he said. Public Transport Agency franchise and monitoring Director Furat Al Amri said Dubai taxis were roomy, clean, regularly maintained and had drivers who were well-behaved with customers.

He called drivers Dubai “ambassadors”. Dubai was the only middle eastern location to feature in the European- and Asian-dominated top spots. Tokyo emerged the king of cities, taking out the top spot in both friendliest and best taxi services, cleanest streets, best public transport and safest city, as well as coming second to Cancun in the friendliest locals category.

Meanwhile, Moscow was the categorical loser, coming last for friendliest locals, friendliest taxi drivers, best taxi drivers and best shopping. It was voted second worst in terms value for money and third worst for ease of getting around -meaning that it had a presence in worst performing of all but two categories, cleanest streets and best public transport.

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