Dubai is a city that never stands still, and we found lots of new things to see and places to go when we went there on holiday this month. We’ve written a post about some of them, including an exciting new entertainment venue, a futuristic museum (pictured), the QE2 Hotel, and Dubai’s answer to Jurassic Park. We also discovered that our one-time local bar had undergone a total transformation.
READ MORE: Ten Must-See NEW Things in Dubai

We came across an odd phenomenon on an almost-empty flight last week – the person sitting in front of you can still be as irritating as if the plane were full! It was as though no space could confine the guy, who bounced up and down in his seat, went to the overhead locker at least 10 times, once leaving it open above our heads, left his seat in full recline during the meal, kept opening and shutting his window screen while we were sleeping, and was generally a pain in the neck. With hindsight, we should have moved straightaway, but then got stuck in the awkward social situation of being stuck.

The coronavirus outbreak has affected nearly everything in Hong Kong for weeks now, with the city looking like a ghost town as people work from home and schools are shut. But the big upcoming “show” in Asia is the Tokyo Olympic Games in July and August. This week TravelPulse reported that the longest-serving member of the Olympic committee, Dick Pound, has raised the possibility of the Games being cancelled if the virus is still strong by May. He makes the point that you can’t postpone nor move an event as big as the Olympics, you need to cancel them – and that hasn’t happened since the Second World War.

Saudi Arabia has this week temporarily suspended entry for tourists and pilgrims in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. It is believed to be the first time the kingdom has ever issued a worldwide ban. Around eight million pilgrims, some of whom were removed from flights they had already boarded this week, go to the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina to perform umrah each year. Umrah is a sort of mini-Hajj; whereas the Hajj takes place at a set time (this year it will be July 28-August 2), umrah can be done any time of the year and takes only a few hours to complete. The coronavirus spread further in the Middle East last week, and Saudi’s Foreign Ministry says it will update its policy on entry visas when appropriate.

Could the days when we flick through glossy brochures as we decide where we want to go on holiday soon be over? Of course the internet has transformed the way we obtain information about destinations, attractions and hotels. But virtual reality technology could sound the death knell for the traditional brochure, according to an article on the impact of artificial intelligence on the travel industry in CIOReview. The unnamed author says the industry should eliminate the “traditional concept of paper brochures” because VR headsets give a “real-time feeling of the rooms and the areas surrounding the hotel”.

Who knew there were so many different versions of Monopoly? These are among the many on offer at the gift shop at a new Hong Kong attraction called Monopoly Dreams. It opened, with unfortunate timing, on the Peak in October – just as the anti-government protests were reaching a climax, and a couple of months before the coronavirus crisis. It’s being touted as the world’s first attraction based on the real estate board game, and there are plans for a second Monopoly Dreams in Melbourne.

The versions include Ms Monopoly – “The first game where women make more than men” – and ones based on Toy Story, The Avengers and Stranger Things, as well as a Hong Kong edition. The sky-high cost of property in Hong Kong is reckoned by many to have been an underlying cause of the social unrest that rocked the city. In view of this, the tag line for the Monopoly for Millennials game is perhaps unfortunate – “Forget real estate. You can’t afford it anyway.”

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