MGM Hotel No Longer World’s Largest Hotel
The MGM Grand Las Vegas has held a unique distinction as the world’s largest hotel at 5,044 rooms. That distinction will soon pass to the centrepiece of a new Dubai resort called the Asia Asia Hotel which will have 6,500-rooms. The Asia Asia Hotel’s 6,5000 rooms are just a small portion of the planned 70,000-80,000 new hotel rooms Dubai plans to build over the next decade in order to boost tourism to its country.
The $27 billion Bawadi resort project will stretch over 6.2 miles and resemble the Las Vegas Strip — without the casinos. Its 31 hotels will be modeled on ancient Egyptian palaces, Hollywood, London’s Houses of Parliament and even the moon. According to Dubai officials, several leading names in the leisure industry have expressed strong interest in investing in the project.
Dubai is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure and real estate developments and is already home to an estimated 17 per cent of the world’s cranes. Other governments in the world’s biggest oil exporting region are following suit and more than $1 trillion worth of infrastructure projects are in the pipeline across the region.