Once the iconic, sail-shaped, landmark hotel in Dubai, the Burj El Arab, had declared itself the world's first seven-star hotel, the gloves came off. Dubai's competitors started planning more and more luxurious hotels to take back the $10,000-a-night market, the most prestigious niche of all the niches in the travel business.
Unsurprisingly, Dubai's nearest neighbour and biggest competitor is among the first to enter the fray. An-hour-and-a-half further up the gulf, Abu Dhabi, the richest city in the world, built a bigger and better hotel, the Emirates Palace.
The Emirates Palace is not the Burj, nor was it meant to be. Dubai is betting its chips on tourism because its oil is running out. Abu Dhabi doesn't have to. Its oil will last longer, so instead of the Burj it built a palace - a palace to show the rest of the world what it is like to have unestimable wealth.
Vastness is central to the plan here, as you are reminded when you enter the gigantic lobby. It takes seven minutes to reach your room, but don't worry, there is a butler to fetch anything you can conceivably be missing after you have worked your way through the fruit basket, the apothecary's shop of toiletries, and business accoutrements.
The all-suite central section is Abu Dhabi's Burj, the wings that spiral off in both directions are home to 202 rooms where plush is a given adjective, the best on offer in the luxury market. The central block of suites all face on to a balcony, looking down on an increasingly distant lobby as the floors and the prices climb.
The best on the seventh floor cost $12,251 a night, compared with $6,800 at the Burj. It is a snip compared with €39,000 a night for the Royal Penthouse Suite at the President Wilson Hotel, Geneva or the $40,000 a night at the Hugh Heffner suite at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
But there is one suite money can't buy. The eighth floor suite is for state guests, nobody gets there without the say so of the Sheikh. Staff like to tell the story of the Russian who offered $1m in cash and still couldn't get in.
Help is at hand for everything. A hotel of this size usually has a staff of 300, this one has 1,200 rising to 2,000 at full occupancy. Staff greet you along every few yards of the lobby. The cleaners come in pairs. Your personal room butler is there to facilitate your every need. There is even a kitchen off the main suites for the butler to supply fresh food.
Staffing levels of four people for every guest cannot be matched by any European or American competitors, and our Gulf friends know it. One of the favourite statistics thrown out by tour guides here is that the Emirates Palace employs 40 people to change the light bulbs alone.
How much did it cost? Nobody is sure, but it is accepted as the most expensive hotel ever built. There is handcrafted gilded artwork in every crevice, acres of gold leaf and marble and 200 custom made Swarovski crystal chandeliers scattered among the labyrinthine suites. Luxury is under every footstep you trod.
Some say the final bill was $4bn. That is two-and-a-half super resorts in Vegas, indicating that the analogies between Vegas and these parts are beginning to wear thin.
The flashing lights, soaring planes and construction work won't disguise the fact that the desert is always near. The gazelles that gave the area its name are long gone and the wildlife has gone with it, but the desert remains.
"The desert is the great silence," wrote Edmond Jabes when he stopped by. "You do not go into the desert to find identity but to lose it, to lose your personality, to become anonymous. To make yourself void. You become silence. You must become more silent than the silence that surrounds you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak."
Edmond never went dune bashing. There is nothing silent about the gleaming Toyota Land Cruiser, the king of the desert, which takes off in a snake from the district beside the Sheikh's camel racing track. They rise as a gang to mount the hill; there is a second of adrenaline filled anticipation inside before the nose dives, and down, down, down we go.
One vehicle overdid it, and ended up with its two front tyres overhanging the dune like a Rowan Atkinson sketch.
Another climbed the dune and pulled it by rope until the specially deflated tyres could gain another grip and then it was back into the topsy turvy world of dune bashing. You won't feel the same about roller coaster rides again after this.
Tropical Sky is a new Internet-based tour operator which offers luxury hotel deals in Asia, Africa, America and Canada. The Emirates Palace is their showcase hotel in Abu Dhabi with lead in packaged from €1200 for three nights including flights with Etihad. For more: 6 Listowel Business Centre, Clieveragh, Listowel, Co Kerry. Call 068 56800 or visit www.tropicalsky.ie.
Etihad will fly daily to Abu Dhabi from the end of March, planes leave Dublin at 7.55pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and at 9.10am every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Etihad operates a three class Airbus A330-200 configured to carry 200 passengers, with 10 in first class, 26 in business class and 164 in economy class. Prices start at €420 return to Abu Dhabi. You can stop over on Etihad journeys, among the special offers at the moment is Beijing for €460.
Eoghan Corry
