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  The Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa has become the latest beach hotel to open in Dubai, offering visitors unrivalled luxury in a spectacular setting. The hotel’s two towers are linked by a central platform housing a new lobby and reception area, which have transformed the former Metropolitan Beach Club into an expansive resort catering to holidaymakers, business travellers, meetings and conferences.

  The luxurious hotel features its own private beach, three swimming pools, a large spa, a health club, squash and tennis courts, children's club and beach water sports centre, while a state-of-the-art, 900-square-metre conference hall and additional smaller meeting rooms make it an ideal choice for incentives, meetings and exhibitions.

  Guest rooms are located within the two beautifully designed towers, including five Ambassador and Presidential Suites plus two Royal and Penthouse Suites alongside an additional 432 guest rooms and suites. All offer stunning views of the Arabian Gulf or the landscaped tropical gardens within the resort.

  There are also several international and theme restaurants, ranging from Asian fusion at Mun Chi, Italian passion at Luciano's, and the finest of fine dining at The 25^th, adding further variety for the taste buds of Dubai residents, as well as the thousands of guests the resort will host each year.

  The completion of the hotel represents the latest successful venture for Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises, whose portfolio of construction projects already includes a number of Dubai’s most famous hotels - including the Burj Al Arab.

  For project director Osama Al Taher and project manager Yasin El-Khatib, there is a real sense of achievement in not only overseeing the construction of one of the finest hotels on Dubai’s Jumeirah Beach strip, but also contributing to the ongoing development of the family-owned Al Habtoor Group, whose Habtoor Hospitality division runs the resort.

  “You always feel a sense of pride in completing a magnificent building like this,” says Yasin. “It has been a real team effort from everybody involved to complete the construction within a very short timeframe, yet maintain the exceptional standards of build quality and finish for which Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises is famous.”

  The team only began construction last June, and had finished the structure by February – taking just seven months to build the 21 and 28-storey towers and the podium that links them.

  “The total built area is approximately 80,000 square metres so it was quite a challenge to complete such a volume of work in such a short time,” explains Yasin, who graduated with a Masters Degree in Structural Design and Construction from Jordan University and spent six years working in the Hashemite Kingdom before joining Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises 11 years ago.

  “We have been working day and night – two shifts – to get this completed on time, but we had a good team on site and there was a real sense of teamwork. The ‘slip form’ process we used for the construction also helped us reach our targets as we put a good system in place.”

  With the structure complete, the next challenge was the fittings and the interiors – all of which have been designed with luxury in mind – down to the mosaic tiling and glass vanity tops in the bathrooms.

  “The rich finishing inside the rooms is what really sets this hotel apart from others in the area,” Yasin says. “The rooms were completed in August, so again there was a massive amount of work completed in a very short time, and the hotel had its soft opening in September.”

  At peak, Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises had 1,000 of its own people and up to 1,500 subcontracted staff working on the busy site.

  “We had around 58 subcontractors working on the project, which required a massive amount of co-ordination in itself,” Yasin says. “Another of the challenges was the co-ordination of all the different aspects of the work, from the pre-cast slabs and aluminium to the MEP (Mechanical, Electrical & Piping) works - of which there are a lot in a hotel.”

  Arthur de Snoo, Area Manager of Habtoor Hospitality, says the new-look hotel represents a significant expansion that has transformed the former Metropolitan Beach Club beyond all compare.

  “It is four times the size, so it is a major change,” the Dutchman says. “And the way it has been done is very nice – you have two very contemporary Arabic towers which are very stylish when you come into the lobby but, during the day when you go to the swimming pool area, it remains casual.”

  While the former resort predominantly attracted discerning leisure travellers, the addition of the two towers and their extra facilities - including a ballroom accommodating up to 850 people, meeting and boardrooms, a spa and new restaurants – has opened up a whole new array of possibilities which enables the resort to attract a more wide-ranging clientele.

  “Due to our former size and layout, we were limited in the type of business we got, which was mainly European packages,” Mr de Snoo says. “But with the expansion of the resort, we are able to target the GCC, more group business, more incentives and more conferences – it opens up completely different markets which we just couldn’t accommodate before.

  “And with the new residential developments in the area, such as Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Islands, we are looking to attract local residents to our food and beverage outlets, our gym, fitness classes and so on, so there is a huge market for what we now have to offer.”

  The expansion, he concludes, creates a ‘complete’ product serves as a unique addition to the current range of hotels on the Jumeirah Beach strip.

  “What you find on the beach is that the hotels are European, or you go to the other extreme with an old-Arabic style. I think we blend in very nicely with a fresh, contemporary Arabic style. That’s what makes us unique from a hardware point of view, and one of the other big advantages we have is a huge private beach, which nobody else has, but it is our staff who make the real difference and set the resort apart.”

  The opening of the Habtoor Grand Resort & Spa is the culmination of a busy year for Habtoor Hospitality, which has also seen the opening of Habtoorland - Lebanon's first, fully fledged theme park  - and the opening of the Habtoor Grand Hotel Convention Center & Spa in Beirut.

  Another significant milestone will arrive in 2007 with the scheduled opening of the deluxe Habtoor Grand Resort Jumeriah Palm, which will offer 250 stunning suites and rooms on the outer ring of The Palm Jumeirah. Other hotels within the group include the Metropolitan Hotel, Metropolitan Palace Hotel and Metropolitan Hotel Deira in Dubai and the Metropolitan Palace Hotel in Beirut.