Dubai ranked best city brand in Mena, 9th globally

Dubai has been ranked first in the Middle East and Africa, and 9th globally in the list of the world’s best city brands.

According to the inaugural Brand Finance City Index released on Thursday, the emirate scored 75.8 out of 100 points, ranking ahead of Amsterdam, Miami, Toronto, Barcelona, Rome, Chicago, Melbourne, Zurich, Boston, Geneva, Vienna, Vancouver, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and a number of others.

A total of 100 cities were ranked in the inaugural list with London topping followed by New York, Paris, Los Angeles, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, San Francisco, Dubai and Amsterdam. While the bottom-ranked cities are Karachi, Kyiv, Mumbai, Dhaka, Bangalore, New Delhi, Nairobi, Nanjing, Hanoi and Tel Aviv.

The survey covered 15,000 people in April across 20 countries on all continents. During the survey, people were asked about the general reputation and their personal consideration of each city as a place to live, work locally, work remotely, study, retire, visit, or invest in. The evaluation of preferences across these seven dimensions was complemented by perceptions of 45 underlying city brand attributes, grouped under seven pillars, such as business and investment or sustainability and transport.

“Dubai has gained a reputation as the ‘City of Gold’ for being a major shopping destination for jewellery, but this title has grown to describe the city’s role in finance and trade more broadly. Dubai has performed well across multiple business and investment attributes, ranking 1st for future growth potential, 2nd in a strong and stable economy, and 3rd behind only New York and London as a city of global significance,” Brand Finance said.

Dubai has been making the headlines globally for being named the social media capital of the world, one of the first to open and recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Simpson, president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council, recently praised Dubai’s competitiveness.

“I recognise the work of Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. These things don’t just happen but there is a vision behind it... There are a lot of expensive destinations out there but Dubai does a great job in marketing itself and providing a lot of different opportunities to businesses here,” she told Khaleej Times.

Ranked 28th globally, Abu Dhabi was ranked 2nd best city brand in the region, as the UAE Capital performed well in business and investment. It claimed top spots globally on a number of attributes, including 2nd in attractive corporate taxation, 3rd in attractive personal taxation, 4th in easy to business in, 7th in great for start-ups and innovation, and 9th in ease of finding employment.

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