Ep 16 - Georgina speaks to Dubai-based hotelier, cat lover and traveller Amy Stevens
Manage episode 296263316 series 2942021
Amy Stevens is a Canadian but has lived and worked abroad as a hotelier for many years. For the last 7 years, she has been based in UAE and more recently moved from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Ironically, she chose to live in the UAE as it is an easy six-hour flight to many interesting destinations like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. However, the pandemic had other ideas and she has been grounded for the past year.
Amy talks about how the UAE went into a short strict lockdown very early on in April 2020 just when the rest of the world was realising the gravity of the situation. She describes watching the pandemic roll out across the world from the relative safety of her apartment in Dubai as like watching a bad movie again and again!
Things may sound a bit dreamy in Dubai compared to the rest of the world but as it is a key tourism destination how the pandemic is fairing globally is very important. Like everywhere else jobs took a huge hit initially and Amy talks about there being a mass exodus from Dubai with moving trucks everywhere. Dubai has been open to tourism since July 2020 though and hotels have been busy since then with a surge in demand for staycations.
Amy is a huge supporter of animal welfare and has four rescue cats and a fifth at the moment which is up for adoption - she is not a crazy cat lady though! She talks about one of the joys and one of the challenges of living in Dubai as being the condition of the animals.
This episode gives you a great insight into how the pandemic impacted people living in the UAE and what is happening right now. Everyday life is almost back to normal but one thing Amy is desperate to do is travel - she's planning her first trip outside the UAE to Santorini this summer. The interview was recorded on Thursday 27th May @ 7 pm UTC.
Website and Facebook page about adopting cats from UAE:
thefurs.ae
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Dubaicats
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