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Fairmont Hotels Go Exotic With Three New Silk Road Hotels
We love new hotels, and we definitely love new hotels in exotic places – so the fact that the Fairmont group have just opened up three new hotels along the Silk Road gets us pretty excited.
The first is the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi – that unusual name means "Gateway to the Sea" so you can guess that it's a beachfront hotel. There's a private beach and two swimming pools if relaxing is on your agenda, but it's also easy to visit the gold markets, a nearby mosque or trek out on a desert safari. Until the end of the year nightly rates start from $230 as an opening special.
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Anantara Qasr Resort Opening Soon In The Desert
Anantara Resorts are still bucking the economic trend: they continue to launch new properties in all corners of the globe. Up next is the Anantara Qasr Al Sarab Resort & Spa, located in the state of Abu Dhabi but around an hour and a half's drive into the desert. It's in a spectacular region which apparently has sand dunes four times higher than the Leaning Tower of Pisa (although we hope the dunes look a little more stable).
Across the resort you'll find 196 rooms and suites, three restaurants and of course an Anantara Spa complete with an impressive marble hammam bath. They'll also set you up to go sand-surfing, camel riding through the desert or quad-biking if you prefer.
Their website will let you book rooms starting from October 25 this year, at least a full week ahead of the November opening we heard about earlier this year. The lower range of rooms start from 1,700 AED ($460) with a one bedroom villa going for 4,200 AED ($1,140).
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Sofitel Takes On Middle East and China
Not a brand to stand around twiddling their thumbs at the moment, Sofitel is busy getting their hotels stuck into the Middle East. For a start, the Sofitel Dubai Jumeirah Beach is due to open sometime this year – press releases are saying September, but their website says July 1 and it looks like we can book rooms throughout July, starting at €150 ($215) – but that's not enough for Sofitel. They've just announced two more properties for the UAE, with Sofitel Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai due to open in 2012 and in Abu Dhabi, the Sofitel Abu Dhabi Capital Plaza is already making progress, ready to take guests in 2010.
And it's not just the Middle East. We were already amazed when Sofitel opened their 23rd hotel in China but they're quickly following that up with three more. In southern China, close to Hong Kong, there'll be two new places: the Sofitel Dongguan and the Sofitel Guangzhou. On the east coast, you'll soon find the Sofitel Qingdao; all three of these new Sofitels are located in main business districts. Opening dates for the Chinese additions aren't being advertised just yet, but it sounds like it'll only be five minutes until we turn around and hear about even more.
[Photo of Sofitel Xian: Ksionic]
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The Leaning Hyatt of Abu Dhabi Reaches Halfway Mark
As you can see from the on-site construction image above, the insane-crazy idea of building the world's most leaning structure as the Hyatt Abu Dhabi is well under way. In fact, it's more than under way, it's half done!
Officially to be called the Hyatt at Capital Centre, it will boast of 200 hotel rooms and 14 degrees more leaning than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. There will also be a swimming pool:
A gigantic internal atrium, including a tea lounge and swimming pool suspended 263 feet above the ground, has been constructed on the 17th and 18th floors, the halfway point of the 35-story, 525-foot tall tower. This milestone offered the designers their toughest architectural challenge and it is at this point that the unique lean of the structure becomes evident.
As if creating a glass-covered, gravity-defying structure wasn't gimmicky enough to attract tourists to this hotel of all of them in the UAE, they had to go and add a dramatic internal atrium. Okay—we've fallen for it; a suspended tea lounge sounds amazing, but we won't be rushing to book a leaning room here anytime soon. Such an innovative structure can't be completed quickly like a typical hotel; we're guessing 2011 for this baby.
[Images: Hyatt Abu Dhabi]
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Abu Dhabi Nears the Finish Line With Their Racetrack-Side Hotel
Remember when we hinted at Abu Dhabi's plan to compete with Dubai's entertainment by building themselves a Ferrari Theme Park, F1 racetrack and track-side hotel? Well, they've actually gone and started the thing; at least the hotel. The structure of it is complete, and currently the construction workers are hemming the glass cloak that will give the building a modular look (one that that reminds us of the Olympiapark in Munich).
The Yas, which will be the world's first five-star Formula One trackside hotel, is a monster with 500 rooms and a marina for docking your megayacht. All of this capped by the pivoting, diamond-shaped glass panels of the roof, which will produce "optical effects and spectral reflections that play against the surrounding sky, sea and desert landscape."
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Abu Dhabi Loving Some Hi-Tech Helix Design
With Abu Dhabi still trying to outdo big bro Dubai, the Gulf city has come up with a high-tech hotel that beats anything we've seen before. The Helix Hotel, whose winning design has just been announced, is not only bizarrely modern but it's also using technology to be environmentally friendly.
The shape is uber-modern, with a helix-shape floor space surrounding an empty core. Apparently this means that from inside the hotel you'll be able to look both up and down to see various public areas, and that includes looking up from underneath to see the rooftop, glass-bottomed swimming pool.
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Shangri-La Abu Dhabi Will Have Arabic Gondolas
Prior to these last couple years of explosive construction in the United Arab Emirates, we had only thought of Abu Dhabi as the mystical location where Garfield would ship Odie the dog when he was being especially annoying. Now, thanks to the proliferation of grandiose hotels in the area, it's somewhere to which we'd gladly ship ourselves, especially since the Shangri-La Abu Dhabi is about to get a sister with a Traders Hotel next door.
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Westin Golf Resort Will Bring "Wellness" to Abu Dhabi
While Westin's Dubai property, the Mina Seyahi Resort. cleans up after their possible outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, Westin has spun on its heels to focus some positive press on its upcoming Abu Dhabi Golf Course Hotel and Spa.
Due by the end of this year, the 146-room complex will be the backbone of an entire community built to give Abu Dhabi residents and business travelers a fresh alternative to the glass-and-steel behemoths going up in the city proper. Focused on recreation, the hotel itself is being designed in a "contemporary wellness style" by Chicago's GREC Architects, and will have its own tennis and squash courts, training studios and a climbing wall, as well as views of the National Golf Course.
We're not used to seeing projects like this planned for the Middle East, as usually the UAE gets stuck with more skyscrapers or some modern building outfitted like a sheikh's palace. In direct contrast, this lower-rise resort puts the focus back onto the outdoors and natural treatments. It could very well become a hit as a desperately needed urban retreat for jaded UAE businessmen.
[Rendering via Starwood]
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Abu Dhabi Hyatt to Put Leaning Tower of Pisa to Shame
Move over, Dubai. Your close neighboring city to the west is getting serious on their friendly competition for tourist dollars. Abu Dhabi is not content with their reputation as a business city in the shadow of Dubai, and to prove it they are having a little fun with their architecture and casting their own funky shadow.
Opening later this year is the 200-room, 5-star Hyatt at Capital Gate, which will not only be Hyatt's first Abu Dhabi hotel but will also hold a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Oddly positioned as the "World's Most Inclined Tower," it will lean four times as far as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It won't simply inch further than Pisa, but will blow it out of the water by leaning a heavy 18 degrees to Pisa's measly 4.
Because of the organic shape of the structure, RMJM Architects have conceived of making the panes of glass as diamond-shaped panels, each one different and placed just so to keep the illusion of a leaning structure. Don't worry about the wind and earthquakes with this one, however, as it's got all the modern precautions that the Leaning Tower of Pisa lacks.
Another larger picture is after the jump.
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Yotel is Headed to Abu Dhabi
In the continuing saga of Abu Dhabi’s attempts to remind the world that Dubai’s not the only city in the UAE, there’s been a big announcement: Abu Dhabi is going to get two Yotels.
At least two Yotels, in fact, according to a recently-signed agreement. There’ll be a Yotel at the Airport and a Yotel at the Abu Dhabi City Centre, with the potential for more in the (further) future.
No word yet on when the Abu Dhabi Yotels should get up and running, but the locals are saying they’ll be “just perfect” for Abu Dhabi’s booming conference and business travel market, and for transit stays at the airport. While we don’t personally know anyone who’s ever needed to transit in Abu Dhabi, we can only guess that Yotel’s done their homework … but let’s put it on record that we think it’s a slightly strange expansion step for them.
[Photo: Ben Terrett]
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Anantara's New Abu Dhabi Resort Offering Up Royal Treatment
As we learned when visited the king of Cambodia’s vacation-home-turned-hotel a few weeks ago, booking a room where royalty once slept is a surefire way to leave life as a commoner behind…at least for a night.
The new Desert Islands Resort & Spa, owned by the Anantara chain, is located on the grounds of the former nature reserve of His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, aka the guy who founded the United Arab Emirates.
After the sheikh died in 2004, obituaries extolled his focus on development, women’s rights, religious tolerance — and concern for the environment. As testament to this, the hotel is located on the largest preserve in the Arabian Gulf, with rare species like oryx, reem, antelope, cheetah, hyena, and desert wolf roaming the grounds.
In the center of this dense fauna is the resort whose 64 rooms, each decorated in rich golds and burgundys, start at about $630 per night. Guests venture out from their comfy surroundings into the reserve on guided safaris or to snorkel, kayak, mountain bike and fish. If you just want to relaz, there is a Safaa Spa onsite and several dining options.
Let's just hope that you don't have any wild run-ins with either the oryxs, reems, antelopes, cheetah, hyenas or desert wolfs.
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Abu Dhabi Building F1 Racetrack Hotel and Ferrari Theme Park
Just when you thought Dubai was having all the fun, neighboring Emirate Abu Dhabi has announced $40 billion-dollar plans for transforming a natural island into a new focus of the Formula One racing world.
Beginning in November of next year, their Yas Island development will host the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on a spanking new race track, complete with the world's first F1 trackside hotel. Banish all thoughts of Motel 6, because this hot property will be kitted-out with top amenities, including yacht parking and views directly into and along the race course.
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