Business in Dubai During Ramadan

I've been lucky enough to call Dubai home for over a decade now, which means that this year will also be my tenth Ramadan. With Dubai having such a transient and ever-changing population, I'm always asked by people what to expect during this month. This is especially the case with new business owners who may be especially nervous as to how busy their business is likely to be during the holy month. So, to help those who aren't sure of what to expect from a business perspective, here are some of my insights and experiences over the last ten years of being in Dubai during Ramadan.

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As you may already know, the dates of Ramadan change every year. The general rule of thumb is that Ramadan moves forward by approximately two weeks each year. Therefore, business activity may depend on other factors such as school holidays or the summer period.

The past

My first Ramadan in Dubai was October 2005 and although the dates didn't coincide with major school holidays or the summer period, from a business perspective it was extremely quiet. This may have been down to a few reasons though. Back then, from a business mindset perspective, Dubai just wasn't as busy as it is now. The pace of life was generally much slower and people took the opportunity to wind down their businesses, enjoy the month and prepare themselves for a busier end to the year. Naturally, as a business owner, the sales projections for the following year were revised to anticipate a slower Ramadan period.

But things have changed since then

Since 2005, Dubai has changed immensely and a consequence of this has been the increasing maturity of the business environment. I'm pretty sure that part of this maturity has been driven from the economic downturn and recession that followed, where Dubai was heavily impacted. In many ways, this forced Dubai to re-invent itself in terms of business credibility, which it most certainly has since.

Over the last five years, we have noticed an incredible change in business appetite during Ramadan. So much so that, consistently during this time, Ramadan has actually been one of our busiest months of the year both in terms of deals closed and revenue. Over the last few years, Ramadan fell during the hot summer months. We expected a mass exodus from the almost torturous temperatures and humidity given that the dates coincided with the school holidays, but what we found was quite surprising and that many key business decision makers remained in Dubai and as a result, we were incredibly busy.

An opportunity to work on internal areas of the business

There are a number of reasons for this that we have identified. For our type of business, many people see Ramadan as the ideal opportunity to work on areas of their business that they may not normally have time to do. Creating a new website, preparing a new marketing initiative or campaign certainly falls within this category. The reduced working hours also provides non-Muslims with an opportunity to spend more time on these areas of the business.

So what about this year?

The team at Nexa are actually quite excited about this year. With Ramadan falling between mid-June to mid-July, we're not expecting a decrease in Dubai's resident population this year especially due to schools still running until the end of the month. Consequently, we're expecting a busy couple of months ahead where businesses will take the opportunity to improve their websites and preparation for the post-Ramadan and summer months, which are also expected to be busy.

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