Unique luxury hotels, fashionable travel and much more

The New Year is traditionally a time to go sales shopping and tourism enjoys a boost as shoppers head to international destinations. Luxury hotels in New York look forward to shoppers hitting Fifth Avenue or visiting during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in early February.

Paris offers the elegant temples of Chanel, Dior and Hermes and Milan’s couture is world famous. However, shoppers looking for a luxury destination in the sun with superb shopping malls are now reportedly heading to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Luxury hotels in Dubai include the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which overlooks the Dubai Mall with almost 12 million square feet of retail space. The huge mall is crammed with high-end extravagances and designer names from Gucci to Louis Vuitton. Although the malls are new, the Middle East has historically been a center of trade for gold, spices and pearls in its colourful souks.

Winter is the perfect time to enjoy Dubai’s sunny desert climate. Tourists are finding that cooling off in one of the shopping malls can also include a trip to a skating rink, restaurant or a movie.

by Gillian

Visitors to Dubai who want to experience some of the local culture and customs will be very interested in the latest offering from the Ritz Carlton Dubai – the Shisha Sommelier. Shisha or hookah is the smoking of a blend of tobacco using a glass-based waterpipe and is an integral part of the social culture in the Arabic world.

Those who have not tried the practice before can head to the Shisha Terrace next to the pedestrian bridge connecting the Ritz Carlton and the Dubai International Financial Center. The Shisha Terrace has a variety of seating options around the outdoor water feature and offers a relaxed ambience surrounded by modern Arabian décor.

Guests place themselves in the expert hands of Sadek Zeineddine, the newly appointed Shisha Sommelier who will put them at ease and guide them through the specialized shisha menu. Originally from Lebanon, he has a wide experience in the food and beverage industry throughout the Middle East and a passion for cultural customs.

His new task involves assisting guests to choose shisha from the many flavors available that will suit their personal preference or complement their food. Guests can even have a unique blend made for them which will be recorded for future visits. Those wanting to try something new on their next business trip to Dubai will certainly want to check this experience out.

by Gillian

How do you fancy staying in a luxury hotel in Dubai with plasma TV, luxury suites, indoor and outdoor gym, personal limo and gorgeous outdoor swimming pool? The latest luxury resort to open in Dubai is Urban Tails and unfortunately it is just for pets! However no expense is spared in giving them the same top-notch service that their owners might expect from a similar luxury hotel.

Custom-built to keep pets happy while their owners are away, the hotel offers 70 suites for dogs and 40 for cats. Plasma TVs in each room are tuned to familiar programs so the pets don’t feel homesick. Pampered pets are offered beauty treatments in the pet boutique, exercise in the gym and even a day at Doggie Boot Camp. Treadmills and agility courses provide challenging fun for energetic dogs, with their own personal trainers of course.

If transportation is required it is provided in a chauffeur-driven limo. This ultimate pet resort destination has been ranked the world’s first seven star pet destination, with rates from $31 per day to $105 for the Royal Suite. It will certainly ease the guilt trip as doting owners jet off to their own luxury resort destination.

by Gillian

It seems that newlywed couples are increasingly looking for something different from the beach and luxury hotel option when arranging their honeymoons.

Darren Noel, the Commercial Director at the specialist wedding site hitched.com, says many are preferring breaks that mix culture with luxury. “Culture combined with a luxury hotel and excellent food can make for a very exciting and unforgettable honeymoon,” said Mr Noel. He quoted Dubai as an example.

A survey by 101honeymoons.co.uk also found a yearning for more adventurous breaks, such as staying in luxury tented camps in India.

The poll also found that more and more newlyweds were taking the ‘maximoon’ option, which sees couples booking luxury hotels in several exotic destinations as part of a round-the-world trip.

Mr Noel suggested that if the honeymoon booking were left to the groom this summer, brides could find themselves boarding flights to South Africa – the soccer World Cup begins there on June 11th.

by Andy Moreton

Book your honeymoon through Luxique – we have the top luxury hotels worldwide.

“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.

It was way back in October 2008 that I reported on the campaign to free Sammy the Shark from her tank in the lobby of Atlantis, the spectacular luxury hotel in Dubai.

I hear now that she’s finally been returned to the waters of the Gulf, from where she was first picked up.

The freckled whale shark, which is an internationally protected species, was a top crowd puller, but also attracted unwelcome publicity for the hotel after animal rights groups demanded her release. A Facebook campaign attracted 26,000 entries. The American actress Pamela Anderson was among the celebrity lobbyists who branded the shark’s capture cruel, and pushed for her to be set free from the luxury hotel in Dubai.

However, Atlantis said all its marine life was cared for to the highest standard and that valuable research had been carried out while the creature had been in captivity.

It said Sammy had been tagged for monitoring and research before being set free.

by Andy Moreton

Book a luxury hotel in Dubai city through Luxique – we have 11 of the very best.

Just over a month after it was formally opened, the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, has been closed to the public.

The observation deck on the building’s 124th floor is currently out of action because of unspecified technical problems. The owners said they were carrying out ‘maintenance and upgrade’.

One report says about 60 people were stranded there for more than an hour four days ago because of a power supply fault. They were brought down by service elevators.

Tickets to the observation deck had been a sell-out since the opening day and it’s thought this unexpectedly high traffic contributed to the problems. Guests who hold tickets will be offered the option to re-book or receive an immediate refund.

by Andy Moreton

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

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.