Me and a living bird of prey at the Abu Dhabi stand at Arabian Travel Market (ATM), which takes place right now in Dubai's Convention Center. What lovely and proud birds these falcons are!
ATM is the biggest travel exhibition in the Middle East. From airlines to hotels to destinations, tourist industry members from all over the world come together to show off and do business.
Even Germany was represented - although with a stand whose design must have originated in the early 60s, a time when walls were quite fashionable in Germany. It's basically a long counter in front of a Bauhaus-style-inspired checkered wood-panel wall featuring the colors of the German flag and a couple of unmotivated German scenery motifs.
This year visitor numbers are visibly down compared to earlier years. I was told you could hardly walk in a straight line without bumping into people in 2008, which is nothing like that this year. A taxi driver, from his own perspective, described the exhibition's situation like this:
"Normally, people wait for taxis. Now taxis wait for people."
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