Actually KaHn he's not far wrong. Dubai have hardly any oil, and it contributes to something like 5% of the emirates total economy. Prince Mo, and his father before him, were adamant that tourism was the way forward, and have invested huge sums of their own wealth to push forward the idea that Dubai is a world leading state. Since then, the sports functions and real estate have flourished, with house prices rising around 150% in the last 2 years alone (my sister has made a lot of money from this. She's currently up 70% on a house that hasnt even finished being built yet. lucky cow). I dont know what prices the commerce sites are worth but with huge companies like Coca Cola, IBM and Cisco investing in land, i can only imagine that those prices are rising too.
It's run entirely by one family, and they're very clever with how they're doing it.