DUBAI Festival City, the waterfront ‘city-within-a-city’ being built on the banks of the Dubai Creek, has selected the InterContinental Hotels Group to manage its planned marina-view conference hotel.
The 500-room InterContinental Dubai Festival City Hotel is being built at a cost of Dh600 million ($163.4 million) and is scheduled to open in January 2007.
The high-rise hotel tower will also have 100 executive apartments and 3,000 sq m of conference and banquet facilities. It will offer guests and visitors an exciting and diverse water front dining and entertainment experience.
The InterContinental Dubai Festival City Hotel will be an integral part of the project’s ‘Crescent’ – the 2.5 million square feet retail and entertainment destination due to become a focal point for downtown Dubai. The Crescent, due to open in 2006, will also have 400 shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as ten international flagship stores.
“Dubai Festival City and its hospitality offering will go a significant way to meeting the demand of incoming tourists that will arrive at the rate of 15 million a year by 2008,” said Omar Al Futtaim, chief executive of the Al Futtaim Group, one of the UAE's leading trading companies and developers behind Dubai Festival City.
The hotel will have magnificent Creek views and a 360 degree view from the bustling streets of downtown Deira; across the Creek towards the spectacular Sheikh Zayed Road towers; and the road to Dubai International Airport. “This is the first hotel offering to be developed as part of Dubai Festival City's three hotels which all form part of Phase I. Dubai Festival City will boast in excess of 1,000 hotel rooms in its phase I development, with an additional 1,000 expected to be developed as part of its remaining phases,” added Omar Al Futtaim. “The InterContinental Hotels Group was selected among many other hotel operators for its sterling reputation.”
Two other hotel properties are planned for the first phase of Dubai Festival City. Among them is a 170-room boutique hotel to be built within the project's Al Badia Golf Resort.