Place competitiveness and entrepreneurship is becoming more and more central in the economic debate on microeconomic of development. We focus on the interlinkages between public administration and business development as it is important to shed light on implemented reforms across countries and over time. Prior research shows that appropriate form and coherent governance structure are key determinants in successful projects in local development. This does not exhaust the set of factors leading to positive performance. In this paper we investigate how i) Dubai local government has regulated and ii) first comer firms have managed the innovation phase. In order to achieve the desired objectives, firms have deeply analysed the local market and made significant changes to its services, while local authorities have fostered their policies to promote the presence of foreign leader companies in the field of travel & tourism e.g. cruise lines?