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By Andy El-Bayeh, CEO of Example
Across the Gulf, a once-in-a-generation moment is unfolding. Cities are being built from the ground up. Destinations are being imagined before they are drawn. The ambition is extraordinary and, in many cases, genuinely unprecedented.
But ambition alone does not build culture. And that is the gap that is quietly undermining some of the most significant development projects in the Middle East right now.
The pattern is consistent. A project is conceived with extraordinary vision. Architects of international standing are commissioned. The renders are spectacular. The investment is vast. The opening is announced with fanfare.
And then it opens. And it feels like a set.
Beautifully constructed, impeccably finished, technically correct in every way, but somehow not quite alive. Not a place that people feel belongs to them. Not somewhere that has a story that the people inside it understand and carry with them.
Culture cannot be retrofitted. It cannot be added at the end of a project like furniture or signage. It has to be designed in from the beginning, with the same seriousness and investment that is applied to the physical environment.
Building culture into a physical place requires three things that most development processes underweight. It requires a genuine understanding of who the place is for: not in demographic terms, but in human terms. What are the values, the aesthetic sensibility, the social rituals of the people this place is meant to serve? What do they need from it that they cannot get anywhere else?
It requires the deliberate design of the cultural layer: the programming, the community, the stories, the rituals that give a place its character over time. This is not the job of the architect or the interior designer. It is the job of specialists who understand how culture is built and sustained.
And it requires patience. Culture is not built at opening. It is built over months and years of consistent, intentional activity that gradually creates a place's reputation, community, and meaning.
This is not an abstract cultural concern. The commercial consequences of getting culture wrong in a destination or hospitality project are significant and measurable. Places without cultural identity compete on price. They attract visitors without building community. They generate initial interest without repeat visits or genuine advocacy.
The places that become genuine cultural assets, that people travel specifically to visit, that build genuine communities of loyal guests, that generate sustained media coverage and word of mouth, are the places that invested in culture from the beginning.
Example works with developers, operators, and destination managers across the Middle East and Australia to build the cultural layer into projects from the ground up. Our work covers brand strategy, identity, programming, PR, and placemaking.
If you are developing a destination or hospitality project in the Middle East and you want to ensure that the cultural layer is as strong as the physical one, we would welcome a conversation.
