According to the World’s Best Cities 2021 report by Resonance Consultancy, Dubai has been ranked among the top 10 best cities in the world.
The ranking is released annually by the tourism, real estate, and economic development advisor based in Canada and the US. This year, Dubai grabbed the 6th position, just after Tokyo (Japan), beating some global cities such as Singapore, Rome and Chicago, among many others.
Top 10
The capital city of England, London is ranked as the best city in the world and is followed by New York (US), Paris (France) and Moscow (Russia), Tokyo (Japan), Singapore, Barcelona (Spain), Los Angeles (US), Madrid (Spain) complete the top 10 list along with Dubai.
“The World’s Best Cities rankings are composed of experiential factors that people consider most important in choosing a city to live and visit, as well as empirical factors that business decision-makers consider important for business or investment,” says Resonance President & CEO Chris Fair.
“The data collected for this year’s rankings provides a snapshot of the performance of these cities leading into the pandemic,” says Mr. Chris Fair. “A year from now, we’ll be able to look at how COVID-19 has affected each of these cities and see which ones prove to be the most resilient during this crisis.”
The study ranks the relative quality of the “major cities” of the world, the largest city in each metropolitan statistical region, with populations of one million or more, based on categories ranging from physical place, to prosperity and people.
Criteria for selection
Overall, it is based on the following categories that the study analyzes cities:
Place: focuses on the layers of the physical experience of a place. Considers the weather, safety, landmarks and neighborhoods, and the great outdoors.
Product: Described as a city’s “hardware” ranking, looks at connectivity to airports, attractions, museums, university rankings, and more.
Prosperity: Focuses on the number of Global 500 corporate headquarters and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Programming: This category includes culture, nightlife, dining, and shopping by measures the “experiential pillars of a great visit like food, shows, shopping and nightlife.”
Promotion: This segment looks at Facebook check-ins, TripAdvisor ratings, Google searches, Instagram hashtags, and more, covering a city’s “ability to tell its story.”
People: This measures how diverse the population of a city is, as well as the percentage of the population with or more than a bachelor’s degree.
Dubai
The report highlighted the massive number of tourists the emirate attracts every year. The Dubai Mall, which is the most visited mall in the world helped Dubai secure the 26th position in the Shopping subcategory. The Burj Khalifa, the world’s first nature inspired shopping mall – CityLand Mall all enjoyed special mentions in the report.
But it’s the outdoors that really clinched Dubai its 6th overall ranking. The city offers outdoor experiences that rank fifth most in quality while it hit the top 10 for both Safety and Weather with an 8th rank. The calm locations in the city like the Sufouh Beach, Palm Jumeirah and the XVA Cafe in the XVA Gallery all makes Dubai a favorite among all types of travelers, the report said.
Other cities from GCC
Apart from Dubai, Abu Dhabi grabbed the 15th position among the world’s best cities while Doha is ranked at the 23rd spot. The capital city of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh found a spot in the top 100 with a ranking of 61. Muscat is ranked 78th while Kuwait City grabbed the 86th spot.
