The Emirates Palace is the Gulf’s shiniest super-hotel and its vital statistics are breathtaking. Whereas other establishments might be proud to boast one dome, the Emirates Palace has 114, the largest of which is 42m across. Within its walls, there are more than a thousand chandeliers, each glittering with Swarovski crystals, 110,000 cubic metres of marble, 755 plasma-screen TVs, 140 lifts and 8,000 trees. It took a workforce of 12,000 to build and its 2,000 staff come from more than 50 countries. The finishing touch is an “Arc de Triomphe” – just a tad smaller than the one in Paris.
This may sound like somewhere in Dubai – the world’s capital of living large, a city where the air crackles with excess and opportunity. Dubai is the kind of place where tennis stars Andre Agassi and Roger Federer play an exhibition match on a rooftop helipad; where diamond-encrusted mobile phones do a brisk business at £5,000 a piece; where millions of people a year fly in just to go shopping.
But in fact, the Emirates Palace is in neighbouring Abu Dhabi, the latest in a wave of lavish development that is now rippling out across the Gulf states in what must be one of the greatest construction booms in history. Rather than being a glitzy anomaly, Dubai is becoming a blueprint for other Gulf nations such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Across these states, construction cranes punctuate the skyline like exclamation marks. Over the next few years, a series of futuristic developments promises to make the Arabian Gulf the most dynamic place in the world to do business. Posed at one of the world’s crossroads linking Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the rest of the Middle East, this means the potential market is huge, from increasingly wealthy middle-class Indians to Europeans looking for a winter getaway.
In Abu Dhabi, which like Dubai is one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE), their own island is already under construction. Saadiyat (the name means “happiness”) lies just off Abu Dhabi city and will soon be home to 150,000 people, two golf courses, 29 hotels, three marinas and a cultural district that will house the world’s largest Guggenheim museum and the first extension of the Louvre outside Paris. Among the starchitects it has commissioned to design it are Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel – in other words, a roll call of the world’s most innovative, most influential and most fashionable.
It promises to place the Gulf firmly on the world’s cultural horizon, a move strengthened by this year’s collaboration of the already well-established Abu Dhabi International Book Fair with the Frankfurt International Book Fair. “The Cultural District will create a cultural asset for the world,” says Mubarak Al Muhairi, director general of Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Authority. “It will be a gateway for cultural experience and exchange. We firmly believe that culture truly does cross all boundaries and, therefore, the Saadiyat Cultural District, will belong to the people of the UAE, the greater Middle East and the world.”
For the moment Abu Dhabi looks best placed among all the other Gulf states and emirates to replicate Dubai’s success. It has a strong business base, a beautiful coastline and is underpinned by huge oil resources. In addition to Saadiyat, the emirate will have its own Formula One Grand Prix from 2009. And there is plenty more in the pipeline. Al Muhairi says: “Even at the upscale end of the tourism market, visitors still want sand and sun, which Abu Dhabi has in abundance. They do, however, also require a myriad of other experiences, a number of which we have in place already – desert and dune safaris, water sports, heritage facilities and a world-class golf course. We intend to build on this with other offerings, on the coast, on our offshore islands and in our inland areas, which will expand the UAE capital’s entire tourism proposition.”
