Regional Updates

This is particularly relevant in Dubai, where tourism accounts for approximately 11–12% of GDP and over 18 million international visitors fueled rapid growth across many sectors in 2025.

At the same time, the ground was already shifting beneath us.

AI was already reshaping how customers discover, evaluate and choose. Search is no longer just a list of links. Increasingly, it’s a set of answers pulled from sources AI deems credible. That changes the game. 

So, while the instinct during this slowdown is to pull back, the smarter move is to reset. Not just incrementally, but structurally.

We advise our clients to focus on a few key areas:

Reassess your marketing model. Not just budgets, but how functions are organized. PR, SEO, content and performance should be brought into a single demand engine rather than operating in silos.

Cut low-value activity, like endless social content with little commercial impact or paid campaigns that stop working when spend is reduced.

Upgrade capability. That may mean fewer people, but better ones — or external partners who can operate at a higher strategic level and understand how AI is changing discovery and reputation.

Focus on credibility, not just visibility. Authoritative coverage, structured content and consistent narratives across markets matter more than volume. If AI can’t find and trust you, you don’t exist at the moment of decision.

Prepare for what’s next. Don’t just experiment with AI as a side project. Integrate it into how marketing works — from content creation to data analysis to customer interaction.

Importantly, don’t disappear from the market. Our experience across numerous crises and market downturns proves that companies that stay visible, and do it properly, deliver materially stronger performance during recovery, often in the 20–30% range compared to those that go quiet.

Hospitality is a good example of the stakes, particularly in Dubai where hotel occupancy averaged mid-to-high 70% levels. Forward bookings and pricing are highly sensitive to sentiment across key source markets. When demand softens, the issue isn’t just empty rooms, restaurants and retail outlets, it’s how destinations and operators are represented externally. That perception determines how quickly demand returns.

The same logic applies across sectors. In uncertain conditions, customers default to what feels known and credible. If your business isn’t part of that set, you’re not in the consideration frame.

Dubai will recover. The question is who uses this window to rebuild properly.

Because the companies that treat this as a pause will be lucky to restart where they left off. The ones that treat it as a reset will come back sharper, leaner and better aligned to how customers, and increasingly machines, actually make decisions.

Rose recently hosted PR for Robots, a webinar exploring how AI is reshaping marketing visibility and discovery. A dedicated PR for Robots session focused on hospitality is coming soon.

Rose Creative Strategy is a Dubai-based marketing agency and advisory, representing multinational brands and government organizations throughout MENA and CIS, with partners worldwide.

Author: John Rose, Chairman, Rose Creative Marketing

For further information, email Galina Savina at [email protected].