New hotel brings aquatic flavour

posted on 21/07/2008: 33 views

Three thousand pieces of blown glass that form a coral-shaped sculpture in the lobby, an 11-million litre aquarium housing 6,500 fish and a US$3 million (Dh11m) a year bill for fish food.

Big numbers are part of everyday life in Dubai, but these are especially large when applied to a single hotel. For Kerzner International, however, the developer and operator of Atlantis The Palm and a company that has trademarked "blow away the customer” as a corporate motto, it is business as usual.

Despite its complexity and grand scale, the US$1.5 billion resort with its pink 'Disneyesque' towers dominating the outer edge of Palm Jumeirah will open a month ahead of schedule, on September 24, said Alan Leibman, the president and managing director of Kerzner International. Room rates are currently being quoted from US$450 a night for a standard room to US$25,000 for the 924 square metre Bridge Suite.

A 50-50 joint venture between Kerzner International, based in the Bahamas, and Istithmar, a subsidiary of Dubai World, the resort comprises 1,539 rooms, a water park, dolphinarium, retail area, conference halls and 17 restaurants. It covers 50 per cent of the 114-hectare area allocated to the Atlantis project. Leibman said that public feedback from the first phase of the development would help to determine how the remaining area was used.

One element that will not be imported from the original Atlantis resort in the Bahamas – on which its Dubai namesake is modelled – is a casino. But Leibman said this did not trouble the resort's accountants. "We never planned to have one; it's not a major part of our business,” he said, adding that the resort's target market was families from the GCC region. "Our market research really came from our presence in Dubai at the Royal Mirage. From that, we had a pretty good idea about what the market here demands.”

One of those demands is service and the need to recruit staff to provide it, a problem facing the hospitality sector throughout the region. "We are looking at bringing in about 3,500 people and right now we have about 1,600 from 45 countries,” said Leibman. "Training for the beginners will take place in the hotel as part of an orientation session.”

In the longer term, Leibman hopes to open an in-house training institution. "It's very important to start training staff here, and one of the things we intend to bring from the Bahamas model is the education institution,” he said, without giving details of when it will be formed.

The company is also building staff housing close to the resort. "By the end of the first quarter in 2009, five buildings will be completed,” he said, "but for the time being we have leased apartments.” Leibman said the hotel would hold a spectacular opening party. "For the openings of our previous hotels we always brought in international stars like Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, and for Dubai we have a special surprise,” he said, although he denied rumours of Madonna being the headline act. – The National

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