Unique luxury hotels, fashionable travel and much more

“Back in the good old days, it was enough for a billionaire designer at the top of his or her game to own a super-yacht, a private island, a Manhattan penthouse, a Tuscan villa and a chalet in Gstaad. Not any more. To be truly a 21st century, global lifestyle superstar you need to own a hotel as well.”

Those were the words of the Daily Telegraph’s Fashion Director, Hilary Alexander, as Giorgio Armani opened his luxury hotel in the world’s tallest building – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. He follows in the footsteps of Missoni (Edinburgh), Moschino (Milan) and Versace (Dubai and Australia’s Gold Coast).

Armani – whose business is worth about £1.58 billion ($2.4 billion) a year in sales –set up a partnership with Emaar Properties, the Arab world’s biggest listed developer, in 2005 to develop a series of luxury hotels, resorts and residences in key cities around the world.

At first glance, Dubai and Armani doesn’t look like a match made in heaven: a city of excess (‘Las Vegas in the desert’) and a minimalist designer. “I am a minimalist, less is more … and when I looked at what was happening here it was the opposite,” said Armani at the hotel launch. “But he [Emaar Chairman Mohamed Alabbar] wanted me and I wanted him.”

The 160-room Armani Hotel Dubai, occupying six floors in the Burj Khalifa, is said to have been designed with ‘an understated palette of cream and earth colours’. It has eight restaurants.

A standard room (with not a single picture on the walls) costs around 4,000 dirhams a night (£718 / $1,089), while the best suite has a price tag of 40,000 dirhams (£7,180 / $10,890).

Armani’s next luxury hotel development with Emaar will open in Milan next year.

by Andy Moreton

The Armani is competing with a host of luxury hotels in Dubai. Luxique has a selection of the very best.

I recently stayed in a luxury hotel that boasted 4½ stars.

I meant to have asked them how they fell so agonisingly short of that Holy Grail of 5 stars, but it went clean out of my head. A couple of extra bottles in the mini-bar, perhaps, a better range of toiletries, free airport shuttle …?

But, of course, these days there are some luxury hotels that laugh at 5 stars – they’re in the 6 or 7 league (the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, for example). There are even rumours of a 10-star luxury hotel planned for somewhere in the Middle East.

There is, in fact, no universal star system. Rating methods can vary from global region to global region, country to country and, in many cases, within countries.

Some in the industry believe this star–rating inflation is more for the benefit of the luxury hotels than their guests. “This is only done for prestige,” said Dr Ghassan Aidi, President of the International Hotels and Restaurants Association. “They want to be apart from the four or five stars existing. They call themselves 6 stars, 7 stars, 10 stars. No such thing exists. Five stars is already too much.”

The ultimate goal would be to develop a unified star-rating system that the consumer could trust. That, though, would be a tall order because different cultures around the world value different things.

by Andy Moreton, with acknowledgements to Rajan Datar and Affan Chowdhry of BBC News online.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone organised a parachute jump from the world’s tallest building – the Dubai tower I wrote about last week.

Omar Al Hegelan and Nasser Al Niyadi, two experienced base jumpers, leapt from 2,716 feet (828m), taking just one-and-a-half minutes to reach the ground at speeds up to 136 mph.

Al Niyadi, who already holds a world record for the first Mount Everest sky dive, described the feat as ‘the best experience ever’.

“When we were at the top of the building I was thinking ‘this is crazy’. I was a little nervous but I wanted to jump from the highest tower in the world to record an achievement for my family and for my country,” he said.

Originally named the Burj Dubai, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa in tribute to Dubai’s financial rescuer – its oil-rich neighbour, Abu Dhabi (Sheikh Khalifa is its President).

When news of the sky-dive appeared online, one message board contributor suggested:

“If its economy continues as it is, it will not be long before we see the royal family of Dubai jumping from the top … without a parachute.”

by Andy Moreton

See the over-the-top phenomenon that is Dubai – Luxique offers a selection of a dozen of the finest luxury hotels in Dubai City.

Even though it recently hit something of a financial black hole, Dubai continues to astound.

Its latest contribution to the wonders of the world is the tower called Burj Dubai, which has just been officially opened. At 2,716 feet (828 metres) high, it’s the tallest building on earth – its spire can be seen 60 miles away.

Constructed with 28,000 glass panels, it has 160 habitable floors. It sets the record for the highest occupied floor, the highest observation deck – on the 124th floor – and the highest mosque.

The opening ceremony included a spectacular firework and light show around the tower, while a screen revealed its exact height which had previously been kept secret.

Burj Dubai will be home to about a thousand luxury apartments, 49 floors of offices and eventually a 160-room Armani-branded hotel.

Steve Rose, writing in Monday’s Guardian newspaper in the UK, commented:

“We’re going to need a new word. The Burj Dubai doesn’t scrape the sky; it pierces it, like a slender silver needle, half a mile high. It’s only because Dubai never has any clouds that we can even see the tower’s top. And, judging by the images released so far, the view is more like looking out of a plane than a building. It has made reality a little less real.”

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers you a choice of a dozen of the finest luxury hotels in Dubai, including the world famous Burj Al Arab, the award-winning Jumeirah Beach and one of the newest luxury hotels, the Grand Hyatt Dubai.

Dubai has become the first Gulf state to have its own metro (subway) system, but being Dubai it’s all a bit different from London or Paris.

For a start, there are three classes of carriage. Oil executives and sheikhs will be in ‘gold’ – with wide leather seats, on-board wi-fi and a front-of-train view. The rest – including tourists and migrant workers – will ride in standard, while there’s a third area for women and children.

The Dubai city metro cost $7.6 billion (£4.6 billion) to build. It has one line – Red – open at the moment, with another, Green, to follow in the summer of next year. It will eventually become the world’s longest driverless train system with more than 43 miles of track.

The BBC’s correspondent in Dubai, Julia Wheeler, says that one of the main challenges will be to persuade motorists, who are used to subsidised fuel and the privacy of air-conditioned comfort, to swap their cars for a mass transit system. With daytime temperatures regularly exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 F), this is not straightforward.

Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, saw the project as a vital piece of infrastructure that could revitalise the city. “It’s the start of something,” he told reporters on the eve of the project’s launch. “It is like when the first plane flew for Emirates [the airline] and the first container ship arrived into port.”

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers a choice from a dozen of the finest luxury hotels in Dubai, including the world famous Burj Al Arab, the award-winning Jumeirah Beach and one of the newest luxury hotels, the Grand Hyatt Dubai.

Dubai, which has already snapped up arguably the world’s most famous cruise ship, the QE2 (see past articles – “Full Steam Ahead For QE2” and “Dubai’s Floating Phenomena”), is now bidding for an icon of the skies - the supersonic Anglo-French Concorde.

Forty years after the British version of the graceful delta-winged aircraft took off on its maiden 22-minute flight, it’s reported that a Dubai-based consortium wants to turn one of the planes into a tourist attraction, possibly on one of the country’s man-made palm-shaped islands.

British Airways grounded its seven-strong Concorde fleet six years ago and gave six to museums. But it kept one, Alpha Bravo, which is now hidden away behind the airline’s engineering base at Heathrow Airport.

By contrast, an Air France Concorde stands proudly on a plinth outside the airline’s headquarters at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Another is preserved at the Paris Air and Space Museum by former engineers who regularly run the electronic and hydraulic systems. A report at the beginning of the month that one of the French models would fly again was revealed later as an April Fool’s hoax.

It’s BA’s Alpha Bravo that is the reported subject for negotiation, but the wings would have to be sliced off before it could be loaded on to a ship for Dubai. Concorde devotees (and there are many), are not happy on either count. Ben Lord, of the Save Concorde Group, said: “Sending it to Dubai would be a kick in the teeth for Britain’s aviation heritage. Chopping off its wings and putting it on a ship would be the final insult.”

A source close to the Dubai consortium told the Times newspaper in London that it would spend several million pounds restoring the aircraft’s interior, much of which was removed and used as spares on other Concordes.

by Andy Moreton

Whether you’re looking for a boutique hotels in London or luxury hotels in Dubai, Luxique can help you every step of the way.

The company aiming to turn the old QE2 cruise liner into a luxury hotel in Dubai has insisted that the project remains on track.

The government-owned developer, Nakheel, bought the liner in 2007 saying it wanted to “usher in the next exciting chapter of her rich and dignified life.”

But there have been rumours that the plans might be shelved because of a lack of funds. The company has cut staff and postponed several projects, including a tower planned to be the world’s tallest, and a high-end hotel being built with Donald Trump.

Nakheel insists, however, that the conversion will go ahead. The company told the Sunday Times in the UK: “The plans for QE2’s full restoration and refurbishment are ongoing; we have no intention of selling the ship to any party whatsoever.”

The refurbishment plans include replacing the ship’s funnel with a glass structure housing penthouse suites, installing a 500-seat theatre in the engine room and building an extensive spa complex.

Dubai is decidedly not immune from the worldwide recession. Cash-strapped tourists have been staying away and the Dubai government has mounted a £10 million ($14 million) campaign to try to lure them back.

Hotel occupancy rates dropped to 79 per cent last year, the lowest level since 2004, with a particular decline in demand from Europe because of the recession.

Hotels in Dubai are said to be cutting rates by up to 60 per cent, so now might be the time to see this modern wonder of the world. Luxique has great deals at a choice of 12 top luxury hotels in Dubai City.

by Andy Moreton

The Versace fashion house, which is now in the hotel business, knows no bounds in the luxuries it’s willing to afford its clientele.

It’s now set to create the first refrigerated beach so that even on the hottest days, pampered guests can comfortably walk across the sand or lie on it.

The beach will be next to the new Palazzo Versace hotel being built in Dubai, where summer temperatures average 40C (104F) and can reach 50C (122F). It will have a network of pipes underneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface. There are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.

The energy required to run this project can only be guessed at, but it’s left environmentalists in despair.

“It’s grotesque that while the world’s poorest people face the loss of their homes and livelihoods, as well as disease and starvation, because of climate change, the world’s richest people think it’s acceptable to waste precious energy so pointlessly on things like artificially cooled beaches,” said Robin Oakley, head of climate and energy at Greenpeace UK.

Dubai’s rulers insist they now place ‘sustainability’ at the heart of their plans for existing and future projects, but Mr Oakley said it appeared that Dubai was stuck firmly in the 1980s.

Regular readers of this column will know about some of the grandiose schemes that are constantly on the go in Dubai – ski domes in the desert, vast artificial islands, skyscraping seven-star hotels etc. It was recently announced that 30,000 mature trees would be shipped there to help landscape a new Tiger Woods-designed golf course that will be bordered by 22 palaces and 75 mansions.

Leo Hickman, a columnist in the Guardian newspaper in the UK, summed it all up: “Dubai represents the will, vision and ambition of our species. Yet many believe it shines an unflattering light on our tendency for folly and hubris too.”

by Andy Moreton

If you want to sample the excesses of Dubai, Luxique offers a range of luxury hotels in Dubai, including the celebrated Burj-al-Arab.

One of the most famous cruise liners in the world, the QE2, is on her final voyage before she comes a floating hotel – in Dubai, where else?!

The Grande Dame of the seas had a slightly inauspicious entry into her home port of Southampton when she ran into a sandbank at dawn. But she was pulled off quite easily and arrived just 25 minutes late.

“No one on board was injured. A lot of people will have been in bed when it happened and wouldn’t have noticed,” said a spokesman for the owners, Cunard.

The Duke of Edinburgh was at Southampton to lead the farewell ceremonies for the ship, which has carried more than two-and-a-half million passengers since being launched by the Queen in 1967. It served as a hospital ship during the Falklands War in 1982.

Tickets for this last voyage were quickly snapped up, with the highest-priced berths going for around £28,000 ($41,000).
With the Queen Mary 2 now the flagship of the Cunard fleet, and with other vessels due to join, the company announced last year that the QE2 would be sold for £50 million ($73 million).

She’ll reach Dubai on November 26 and be handed over to Nakheel, part of the Dubai World company, which created the planet’s largest man-made island, the Palm Jumeirah.

After refurbishment over the next few months, the ship will dock permanently at a specially constructed berth to add yet another astonishing feature to an island that’s fast becoming one of the wonders of the modern world.

by Andy Moreton

Luxique offers the best rates at a dozen superb luxury hotels in Dubai.

Forget ‘Free Willy’ – the cry in Dubai has been ‘Free Sammy!’

Sammy the Shark has been the star attraction for several weeks in a huge tank in the lobby of Dubai’s spectacular new luxury hotel, Atlantis.

But the 13-foot whale shark is apparently a juvenile and a protected species and environmentalists have been waging a campaign against the hotel’s state-owned developers to have her removed. Newspapers, radio stations and schools joined the fray and there was even a petition on the social network, Facebook, signed by 8,000 people.

The hotel has maintained that it rescued the shark off the Dubai coast and that it’s been nursing Sammy back to health. However, former employees have told the local press that capturing a whale shark was always part of the hotel’s plan to provide an added tourist attraction.

Now, the UAE’s Minister for the Environment, Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, has stepped in, saying the shark will be set free and returned to the sea.

Local journalists say the decision to release Sammy came as a surprise to even her staunchest supporters, highlighting how local sensibilities in the UAE are changing. This is in part because Dubai is attracting growing numbers of expats concerned about the environment.

by Andy Moreton

See the phenomenon that is Dubai – Luxique offers a selection of a dozen of the finest luxury hotels in Dubai.