Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Being Canadian has its privileges.
When Ski Dubai, the Middle East's first indoor ski resort, opened in 2005, David Macadam and his family got a call for help from the marketing director.
"She said 'We've got a problem, nobody knows how to ski and this place is opening,'" Macadam told Business in Vancouver. "'You've been skiing for 40 years, maybe you can come over?'"
So the Macadams went to the Mall of the Emirates attraction, slapped on the skis, rode the chairlift and schussed down the ersatz slope for the TV cameras, including a visiting CBC crew. It's only a fraction of the size of a Whistler run, but it was a welcome respite from the desert heat.
Macadam, the chairman of the Canadian Business Council of Dubai and the Northern Emirates, moved to the Persian Gulf metropolis in 2004 after 25 years living in North Vancouver and splitting a decade as an executive with Penreal and Bentall.
"We were empty-nesters, our kids had moved away to university. I said to my wife, it was a miserable March day, we've got to go to some place and the only criteria is it doesn't rain," Macadam recalled. "We came here because we wanted something that was different; we both wanted to work on a foreign basis, as an expat. Both my brother and my wife's brother had worked expat pretty much throughout their careers and enjoyed the experience."
For three years, Macadam headed leasing and revenue for Al Futtaim Group's massive Dubai Festival City retail, office and residential development before joining Emaar Properties as the vice-president of leasing for 10 shopping centres, including the Dubai Mall. The world's largest shopping mall is at the base of the world's tallest building, 828-metre high Burj Khalifa, which opened in 2010 and contains a public aquarium and skating rink.
"We had 1,244 (locations), and we had 1,500 retailers that wanted to be there," he said. "It's a fascinating experience, to find more retailers than there are spaces for the retailers. We were able to put all the best brands and the new brands from around the world into this place."
Macadam is now head of retail for the Middle East and North Africa office of Jones Lang LaSalle. JLL played a role in helping Dubai Apparel Group, the master licensee in the region for Tim Hortons, to open four of the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain's outlets.
"It's very much on the leading edge of making great inroads to this market, the Always Fresh symbol, the idea that it's Canadian, because people in the regional like Canadian business and Canadian products," he said. "One of the things Canadians should not overlook is the fact that the wealthy, high net-worth individuals here and the governments, to an extent, are very interested in investing abroad."
U.A.E. has more than $10 billion invested in Canada, which exported $1.358 billion of goods to U.A.E. in 2011 and imported $901 million. This fall, the Canadian Trade Commissioner reported U.A.E. had "an increase in consumer confidence, a surge in the import of iron and steel as well as building products and supplies."
Macadam said, "The population is young and growing, there's a great demographic for consumption which you don't have in North America or Western Europe."
The U.A.E., which has a 5.75 million population and whose capital is Abu Dhabi, is about the size of New Brunswick. Macadam said there are 44,000 Canadians there, of which 40,000 are naturalized. The only major drawback is the lack of direct air service between Dubai and Vancouver. Emirates Airline launched a daily Seattle to Dubai flight last March.
Canadian and Emirati officials are talking again after a late 2010 diplomatic spat. Under pressure from Air Canada, Ottawa refused Emirates' bid for new routes to Vancouver and Calgary and an expansion of the thrice-weekly Toronto service. (See "Emirates Airline set to take another run at Vancouver service" – BIV issue 1162; January 31-February 6.)
U.A.E. retaliated by evicting Canadian troops from Camp Mirage near Dubai and ending visa-free status for Canadian visitors.
"That was a political issue that perhaps some people in Canada didn't see the opportunity that was actually there," Macadam said. "Emirates is well poised to take advantage of that."
