Hotel Online Special Report

 
United Investments Portugal (UIP) in Middle East Consortium to
Develop Luxury Hotels & Vacation Club Resorts on
Palm Island-Dubai-UAE

�Dubai-one of the worlds fastest growing business
and tourists destinations� (WTO)

 
19th June 2002-Dubai - Kuwait-based International Financial Advisors (IFA) consortium has signed a deal to build resorts on the Jumeirah Palm project, (palmisland.co.ae) acquiring three resort sites (1,000,000 Sq Ft) at a cost of $45 million. IFA is a consortium of Kuwaiti Real Estate Company (KREC), International Finance Company (IFC) of Kuwait and United Investments Portugal (UIP).

The idea of Palm Island was conceived in 1996 by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Crown Prince of Dubai as a solution to create tourism components for the rapidly growing Dubai market.

The Palm island project consists of a development in the shape of palm tree, the trunk of the palm features a retail and entertainment village with large anchor hotels, each with its own marina, as well as shoreline luxury apartments. The branches of the Palm will encompass an exclusive gated residential community for 1000 families. The crescent barrier island surrounding the fronds contains the 38 hotels each with its own theme and 11kilometres of beach and is in fact a barrier reef. 

The contract was signed by Palm Island Chairman Dubai's Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCFC) Chief Executive Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Jassim M Al Bahar-IFA Chairman/ Managing Director & Chairman/CEO of United Investments Portugal ET SA, at the Palm headquarters in Dubai.

United Investments Portugal (UIP) is engaged in the creation of world class resorts and building on the success of United Investments Portugal Pine Cliffs Resort, Palm Island will add to its vision of creating a network of leading five star resorts in Europe and the Middle East, catering for the European and Gulf tourist market. The Dubai resorts will be managed and operated by international five star hospitality and vacation club management companies and will be designed by international hospitality architects.

United Investments Portugal is the owning company of the Pine Cliffs Resort, Algarve, Portugal (pinecliffs.com), which is managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with more than 740 properties in more than 80 countries. Pine Cliffs Resort comprises 700,000 sq metres of cliff top land, overlooking a 2 kilometre beach and includes an Andalucian styled 215 room hotel-The Sheraton Algarve is one Starwood�s Luxury Collection Hotels. Pine Cliffs Resort includes a Pine Cliffs Vacation Club and a wide range of facilities for families, golf course, beach and the resort accommodations include Townhouses, Apartments and detached four bedroom villas. Pine Cliffs Vacation Club is affiliated to RCI (rci.com) for provision of exchange facilities to its members.
 

Facts on Dubai & Palm Island

The trunk features a retail and entertainment village with two large anchor hotels, each with its own marina, as well as shoreline luxury apartments. The frond crown of The Palm will encompass an exclusive gated residential community for 1000 families. The crescent barrier island surrounding the fronds contains the 40 boutique hotels each with its own theme. 

The project will be the largest man made island in the world. It will feature over 60km (37 miles) of new shoreline created from 80 million cubic meters of rock, sand and earth all taken from local resources. Strong environmental considerations influenced its engineering and not a single live head of coral will be touched in its development. The overall project is clearly one of the most unique in the world. However, perhaps the most incredible aspect of the project is that it will be the first man made earth form to be identified by the human eye from outer space. Clearly, The Palm will be a global icon.

The Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jebel Ali will add some 120km of new coastline to Dubai.

Each island will feature 42 boutique hotels on the Crescent and 1,700 homes consisting of individual villas, Canal Cove and apartments.

The trunk features a retail and entertainment village with two large anchor hotels, each with its own marina, as well as shoreline luxury apartments. The frond crown of The Palm will encompass an exclusive gated residential community for 1000 families. The crescent barrier island surrounding the fronds contains the 40 boutique hotels each with its own theme. 

The trunk of each island will include two marinas, each capable of berthing 200 yachts as well as two hotels. According to the report, the overall cost of the first two phases of each island is estimated at $1.5 billion. This includes the reclamation, infrastructure, services and roads.

The third phase relates to the construction of the hotels, villas and other buildings.

The first Palm project will be ready for occupation by 2004-end.

The Palm Jebel Ali will be ready for occupation in 2005.

The island will be created in the shape of a palm tree and consists of seventeen palm fronds surrounded by a crescent shaped protective barrier reef. Van Oord ACZ will utilise its medium class trailing suction hopper dredgers and cutter suction dredgers for the dredging and transportation of 54 million cubic metres of sand for the development of the palm tree and 11 million cubic metres for the reclamation at the inside of the breakwater. The �trunk� of the palm tree will be four kilometres long and the diameter of the palm fronds will be another four kilometres. The Palm Island Development is to become a tourist attraction. It includes residential villas, luxury boutique hotels, shopping centres, marinas, the region�s first marine park and adds about 60 kilometres of shoreline to Dubai.


 

###

Contact

James Wilson
United Investments Portugal & Pine Cliffs Vacation Club
Tel +965 6644998
Fax +965 2407179
Email [email protected]
www.pinecliffs.com
www.palmisland.co.ae



To search Hotel Online data base of News and Trends Go to Hotel.Online Search

Home | Welcome! | Hospitality News | Classifieds | Catalogs & Pricing | Viewpoint Forum | Ideas/Trends
Please contact Hotel.Online with your comments and suggestions.