In terms of its economy, Dubai is in a funny place right now. After benefiting massively from the oil wealth of surrounding Emirates, it is using the money to make high-class tourism one of its main exports.

It is not itself a large oil producer, oil and gas accounts for about six per cent of its economy, a segment that is dwarfed by construction (massively inflated by tourism projects) and, increasingly, financial services.

The country is rich now, but with oil running low it’s doing its best to create a market economy that can compete with the world when its oil advantage goes away. Its answer appears to be super-hotels.

The ‘10 star’ Burj Al Arab is probably the most famous of these with its 1,000 ft height, sail-mimicking design and unremitting opulence. But since yesterday the Burj has a rather intimidating competitor.

Atlantis on the Palm was the brain child of South African leisure tycoon Sol Kerzner and soared out of the ground with help from a consortium of UAE companies. It sits on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island, which is shaped like a palm tree – just because it can.

It opened its 2,000 rooms (including one that costs £14,000 a night) on Thursday with true Dubai-style excess and already boasts a string of spending records.

It kicked off with the biggest ever launch party (at £20m), biggest firework display (you could see it from space) and it’s star attraction is one of the largest lagoons in the Middle East filled with 11m litres of water.

But there also infinite lesser pulls such as a resident falconer (who, presumably, is a little confused about what he’s doing there), seven water slides, 550 chefs and 24 bottle-nose dolphins imported from the Solomon Islands.

Dubai already has a suite of bizarre tourist attractions including indoor ski slopes, underwater hotels and the largest shopping centre in the world. But with such lavishness included as standard you wonder in these Crunched times, who’s going to afford to have a good time there?

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By Dan Matthews  on   Nov 21,2008

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Keywords

Dubai    hotels    leisure    spending    economy    crunch    construction   

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