The booming Gulf city state of Dubai will add another feather in its cap with the construction of the world’s longest hotel strip at a cost of $27-billion, developers said.
“Bawadi” will feature 31 hotels, many theme-based, offering more than 29Â 000 rooms projected to host 3,3-million guests by 2016, said Saeed al-Muntafiq, chief executive of Tatweer, which will develop and manage the project.
The development will be built on a 10km strip of land with total investment estimated at 100-billion dirhams ($27,2-billion), Muntafiq told reporters and tourism industry executives.
Tatweer, which is part of Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by the government of Dubai which oversees mega projects in the emirate, will invest 40-billion dirhams ($10,9-billion), with the rest expected to come from other investors.
One of the hotels, AsiaAsia, will be the largest in the world with 6Â 500 rooms, according to Tatweer. Many hotels will be based on themes ranging from the Arabian desert to the Wild West.
The first phase of the project, which will feature entertainment centres and theatres meant to attract top artists, will be completed in 2010. The final phase will finish four years later.
Dubai, which attracted more than six million tourists last year, is in the midst of a construction frenzy, with resorts, malls, sports installations and residential complexes sprouting up across its desert sands.
One of the seven members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) federation, Dubai has made plans to receive about 15-million visitors a year from 2010 and already has a string of luxury hotels.
The latest tourist venture was unveiled in the presence of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is the driving force behind the emirate’s spectacular transformation into a business and leisure hub.
Sheikh Mohammad is also the UAE’s vice-president and prime minister.
“Bawadi” will rise near Dubailand, a complex projected as a Middle East version of Disneyland.
Other ambitious projects under way include the Burj Dubai tower, which will be 800m high when it is completed at the end of 2008, becoming the world’s tallest skyscraper, and The Palm and The World man-made island projects off Dubai’s coast. –AFP