Emirates Palace

Emirates Palace , 2016

The Emirates Palace (Arabic: قصر الإمارات) is a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It was created with the aim of showcasing Arabian culture. It offers luxury hospitality. It is located on 1.3 km of private beach. 85 hectares of lawns and gardens surround the hotel, as well 114 domes that are 80 meters high. It contains 394 residences. The Corniche runs from here all the way north.

Construction

John Elliott RIBA, the former Senior Vice President at Wimberly, Allison, Tong and Goo, (WATG) an international architectural firm with a specialisation in Luxury Hotels, was the primary designer of the building. It opened in March 2005 but certain restaurants and facilities did not open until 2006. The Government of Abu Dhabi both own and built the building. Kempinski handles the management of the building. The costs to build the hotel were 1.9 billion GBP or 11.02 billion AED or about 3 billion USD. The Emirates Palace is the second most expensive hotel ever built, only surpassed by Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The hotel also had higher construction costs compared to the Burj Al Arab in neighbouring Dubai.

Rooms and facilities

Emirates Palace consists of 394 residences, 302 of which are rooms and the remainder are suites. The residences are spread over two wings as well as a primary central building. The majority of the suites are furnished in gold and marble. The main primary building houses an expansive marble floor and a large patterned dome above, picked out in gold. The penthouse floor has six Rulers' Suites which are reserved exclusively for dignitaries, such as royalty.[1] The hotel also contains a large conference centre with an auditorium capacity of 1100, in addition to over 40 meeting rooms and six large terraces.

One facility in the hotel is the beach club. Inside this club a six-kilometre cycling/jogging path is present. Other amenities in the club include tennis courts, two watersports, outdoor pools, cricket, a rugby pitch, and soccer facilities.

Events

Christina Aguilera performed at the venue during her Back To Basics Tour on October 24, 2008. The show had an audience of 15,000 people, attracting great media attention to the hotel. The hotel also appears in the new Fast and Furious 7 film, which was released in 2015.[2] Shots of the hotel were also used in the 2007 film, The Kingdom.

Reception

Based on its luxury, it describes itself as going "beyond 5 stars"[3] being a palace instead of just a hotel. Although a journalist has described it as a seven star facility, it falls officially in the 5 star hotel category.[4]

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References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.