Summer

Cover of Summer, Moment Report No. 12

Moment Report No. 12 · 22 pages · 23 sources

How does the Gulf summer change behaviour?

The Gulf summer moves life indoors and abroad. Heat makes complex decisions harder: in one experiment, 27 per cent of people in a warm room chose the cheapest phone plan, against 59 per cent in a cool room. Warm nights cost sleep. Outdoor work stops at midday by law, and more than 3.4 million passengers passed through Dubai International in the first 13 days of the 2025 holidays.

What the report found

  1. It is the hottest season of the year. The UAE recorded 51.8 degrees in August 2025, and a mandatory midday break protects outdoor workers from 12.30 to 3 in the afternoon for three months.
  2. Heat changes the mind. In experiments, people in warm rooms made worse complex decisions, choosing the frugal phone plan less than half as often as people in cool rooms. Hot nights cost sleep, and hot days worsen exam results.
  3. The country travels. Dubai International expected more than 3.4 million passengers in the first 13 days of the 2025 summer holidays, and a million visits were made to the cool, green Khareef season in Oman's Dhofar region.
  4. Those who stay move indoors. Dubai Summer Surprises ran for 66 days in 2025, and Dubai's government moved all its entities to flexible summer hours after a pilot in which 98 per cent of employees were satisfied.
  5. Holidays help, briefly. Much of a holiday's happiness comes before it, in anticipation, and research finds its benefits to health and well-being fade within weeks of returning.

What is inside

  1. The moment
  2. Before: planning to leave or stay
  3. During: heat and the mind
  4. The decisions that shift
  5. How the moment is lived across the Gulf
  6. What lasts

Plus a phase map of the season, a summer-day timeline and a data panel of UAE and Gulf figures.

Who it is for

For retailers, employers, airlines, schools, government planners and anyone spending a Gulf summer.

How we work

Moment Reports look at how people think and decide at particular points in the year or in life, starting with the UAE and then the wider Gulf. Every claim is graded Established, Emerging or Untested, and where researchers disagree, both sides are set out before we say where we stand.

Cite this report

The Why We Project (2026) Summer: Heat, travel and the long break. Moment Report No. 12. Dubai: Why We Tech Ltd. Available at: thewhyweproject.com