LUXURY TRAVEL | ABU DHABI
A home to the Etihad Formula One Grand Prix, Yas Marina Circuit draws 50,000 tourists for three days of high-octane partying.
ABU DHABI RACING TO BUILD THE NEXT SUPERLATIVE BY JOHN ARUNDEL
With 9 percent of the world’s oil and 95 percent of the United Arab Emirates’ known reserves, Abu Dhabi is fabulously flush and is reportedly in the process of investing $1 trillion both at home and abroad. CNN has called it the world’s wealthiest city. Abu Dhabi began exporting oil in the early 1960s, and in 1971 declared its independence from the British Commonwealth, forming the U.A.E. from the seven trucial states. The late Sheikh Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and U.A.E.’s president from inception, helped transform the petro-centric economy into one heavily invested in health care, education and the national infrastructure, striving to make it a model of stability and a new magnet for global tourism in the Persian Gulf. With a finite supply of oil, Sheikh Zayed’s
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successors began reducing the U.A.E.’s dependency on oil exports with a 20-year plan of diversifying the economy into business, banking and tourism, first with Dubai, and in the past five years with Abu Dhabi. Dubai long ago succeeded in becoming what some fondly call “Disneyland in the Desert,” but with many of its own ambitions put on hold by overbuilding and a bruising recession, Abu Dhabi is now making big moves of its own to bring tourists to its gleaming new hotels and cultural attractions set along the white-sand beaches of the Arabian Peninsula. At night, the inky black Arabian skies are punctured by shards of light from the construction cranes swaying back and forth as they race to build the city’s next superlative, complementing the global phenomenon of
neighboring Dubai. In 2009, Abu Dhabi built the world’s “richest racetrack” Yas Marina Circuit, a home to the Etihad Formula One Grand Prix, and followed up a year later with Ferrari World, home to the world’s fastest roller coaster. Emirates Palace is a superlative unto itself. Costing $3 billion, it is reportedly the most expensive hotel ever built, taking three years and 20,000 workers to fully complete in 2006. Everything is over the top, from the gold bullion machine in the lobby to the 1,000 chandeliers, 114 gold-encrusted domes and marble sourced from 13 countries. Even the fine sand on its beach is imported from Tunisia. Over the past three years, four other ultra-luxe hotels have opened their doors in Abu Dhabi. Ritz Carlton, Hyatt, St. Regis and Marriott have
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P H OTOS CO U RT E SY A B U D H A B I TO U R I S M & CU LT U R E AU T H O R I T Y
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NCE A SLEEPY BACKWATER DEPENDENT ON FISHING AND PEARL DIVING THE DISCOVERY OF OIL YEARS AGO HAS PROPELLED THE EMIRATE OF ABU DHABI INTO THE RANKS OF THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT FINANCIAL GATEWAYS AND MADE IT THE COSMOPOLITAN TOURIST HUB OF THE MIDDLE EAST