Ahmedia Heritage Guest House, located in Al Ras near Shindaga tunnel across the creek from Bur Dubai, was converted into a guest house in 2011. Christopher Pike / The National
Ahmedia Heritage Guest House, located in Al Ras near Shindaga tunnel across the creek from Bur Dubai, was converted into a guest house in 2011. Christopher Pike / The National

Dubai’s heritage hotels come of age



Sand-coloured coral walls, wooden ceiling beams and non-existent parking all seems a far cry from the UAE’s ultra glitzy hotel scene.

But such idiosyncrasies are among some of the features that endear Dubai’s heritage hotels in its old trading areas.

The Dubai-based Planet Group's Arabian Courtyard Hotel and Spa manages three old residences converted into hotels and guesthouses that date back to early 1900s. Another, the XVA Art Hotel, is managed independently in Dubai's old Bastakiya district by Mona Hauser.

“Since we had the first experience with Orient Guest House, we realised these rooms are hard to sell to the local market, where hotels mean fitness rooms and swimming pools,” says Habib Khan, the general manager of Arabian Courtyard Hotel and Spa.

“So, we launched the first property in [ITB travel show in Berlin in] 2007. And we got a very positive response from people who were selling other destinations such as Lebanon and Egypt because Dubai didn’t have similar products.”

The buildings – all now owned by Dubai’s Heritage Department – usually date back decades, some up to 100 years.

The XVA Art Hotel, which Ms Hauser has been managing since 2003, has four interlinked houses, featuring a 13-room guesthouse, a cafe and an art gallery.

The Orient Guest House, which was the first to be converted into a guesthouse in 2006 by Arabian Courtyard Hotel and Spa, is also located in Bastakiya.

The neighbourhood once housed Iranian migrants, who named it after an Iranian town called Bastak, according to the journalist Jim Krane in his 2009 book Dubai: The Story of the World's Fastest City.

The Orient Guest House property is referred to as “villas 91A and 92” in Dubai Municipality papers, and features 11 rooms.

A similar property, Ahmedia Heritage Guest House, located in Al Ras near Shindaga tunnel across the creek from Bur Dubai, was converted into a guest house in 2011 and the second unit came online last year.

Barjeel Heritage Guest House is the most recent property to be added to the heritage hotels list late last year. It comes with nine rooms around a courtyard and an Emirati restaurant overlooking the creek in the Shindaga area in Bur Dubai.

Of the three, Ahmedia Heritage Guest House is considered the oldest, being part of the same complex as the Ahmadiya School, which was established in 1912.

Past the narrow streets of Al Ras, it was once a residence of Al Hamili family and, similar to the other three properties, the rooms are arranged around a small open space after the main door, much like a square courtyard.

The glass ceiling, which seals off the roof to enable the property to be air-conditioned, is among the more visible efforts to make the old houses fit for modern living.

The Ahmadiya Art Gallery near the lobby stands at where a majlis used to be. Bedrooms line the upper floor of the two-storey house.

While Dubai Municipality’s Heritage Department is in charge of renovating the buildings and regular maintenance, the daily up-keep of these structures falls with Mr Khan.

“We maintain the building but have guidelines from the Heritage Department,” he says. “For instance, we cannot paint over the walls. And there are a lot of electrical and plumbing issues as these tend to get busted with age.”

While that makes it difficult to explain to visitors challenges such as keeping out the moisture from the nearby creek out of the old walls, Mr Khan appreciates the role such establishments can play in boosting awareness of the Emirates and its culture.

“This is a great way to promote Dubai as a destination,” he says.

“Moreover, the sense of togetherness that held a family is evident in how a house here grew, such as adding a room when a son got married. This is what heritage and cultural values are about. ”

Ms Hauser agrees. “To me it’s about art.”

Given the success of the heritage hotel concept, Dubai Municipality aims to develop it further.

“We plan to have three to four more heritage guest houses in Dubai in the next couple of years,” says Ebtihal Mohammed Almadani, the principal interior architect at the Architectural Heritage Department in Dubai Municipality.

But that depends on whether the old structures have space to accommodate modern amenities, such as a bathroom.

The Arabian Courtyard Hotel and Spa has invested about Dh6 million until now to maintain its three properties.

That includes things such as the handmade wood furniture and detailing such as chunky, old iron locks for doors and lantern-shaped lamps in the corridors.

The group’s guest houses have an average occupancy of about 75 per cent and an average room rate of US$200, similar to many hotels in Dubai. And Mr Khan knows he is addressing a clientele different from the beach-goers and shoppers converging in the newer areas of town.

“You need a different mindset to stay here,” he says. “You need to love history and culture to come here.”

While 90 per cent of the visitors are leisure tourists, the guesthouses do get a sprinkling of diplomats, photographers and writers.

The average length of stay is two to three nights, and Mr Khan says the top markets are Germany, the United Kingdom, Scandinavian countries and Japan.

The Planet Group expects to venture into Sharjah to manage a renovated old house ready for use next year.

Referring to the cautious approach to growth adopted by the company, Mr Khan says it was important to test the waters.

“We wanted to see how the dust will settle after the three guesthouses in Dubai.”

It seems to have settled very well.

ssahoo@thenational.ae

Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

What is a robo-adviser?

Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.

These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.

Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.

Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

Unresolved crisis

Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.

Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.

The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.

Engine: 3.5-litre V6

Transmission: eight-speed automatic

Power: 290hp

Torque: 340Nm

Price: Dh155,800

On sale: now