In the mini state of Dubai, home to 600 hotels of which 65 are 5 stars or higher, it will take a lot more to impress guests than a simple bottle of wine or free Wi-Fi in their room. How about a hot tub with a view of 65,000 bright fish in a subtropical lagoon? Or perhaps a dining table at a ski slope while the outside temperature rises above 40 degrees?
Robert De Niro, Antonio Banderas, Lily Allen and Naomi Campbell – they all stayed at Atlantis, one of Dubai’s mega hotels. It took 2 years to build at a cost of 1.2 billion euros. During the extravagant inauguration in 2008, 25 million euros in fireworks were set off in 15 minutes. Critics stated that this would be the downturn for the Dubai hotel boom. However, this has not yet been the case and the hotels in Dubai still boast the highest occupancy rates in the world.