Hollywood glamour could boost tourism in Abu Dhabi - The National

Sex and the City 2 was not filmed in the UAE, and its producers were rebuffed when they asked to shoot some of the scenes here, but the fact that large parts of the film are set in Abu Dhabi are expected to benefit the capital’s economy.

The film, like the television series on which it is based, follows the escapades of Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, and three of her female friends, who live in New York. Requests to film scenes in the UAE were turned down, while Dubai Studio City refused to give permission for scenes to be shot in Dubai, citing the “multicultural fabric” of the city.

Despite these setbacks, the production team still opted to have the characters jet off to Abu Dhabi for a one-week holiday as part of the plot.

“It’s the new Middle East and the future,” said the writer and director Michael Patrick King when asked about his decision to bring Abu Dhabi into the film. “I think there’s a very big story in the Middle East and it also is a very advanced, glamorous capital,” he told the film website Collider.com.

Analysts say the scenes, which feature camel riding in the desert, and nightclub and market scenes, are likely to entice viewers to the UAE capital, even though the desert segments were filmed in Morocco.

Millions of people around the world are expected to watch the film, which is to be released next month, although its prequel did not make it to the big screen in the UAE. “Although the audience knows it is filmed somewhere else, it still has a positive impact on the destination where the movie is set,” says Dr Ian Michael, a professor of marketing at Zayed University in Dubai. “Research to date is proving that this benefits the place where the movie is set, in this case Abu Dhabi, and to a lesser extent where the movie is actually filmed.”

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