The newly rebranded Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi is celebrating its official launch on Friday.
To mark its inclusion into the Mandarin Oriental portfolio, the property has undergone an extensive renovation that covers rooms and dining experiences. The hotel is also home to a new spa and sports facilities.
Mandarin Oriental took over operations of the hotel in January 2020 and had already put a renovation plan in place when Covid-19 occurred a couple of months later. It used the quiet period that came in the wake of the pandemic to put its stamp on the landmark Abu Dhabi property.
The aim, says general manager Michael Koth, was to make the hotel feel more relevant and accessible, while maintaining its grandeur.
“This is a palace and it is already so special. We are not chucking down the marble and the grandness of what we are. We are trying to amplify and change it slightly to create a more contemporary feel. Modernising it and getting it to a more discerning clientele and making it feel more relevant to today."
Part of the process has involved making the property feel more accessible, even though the product offering, service levels and room rates have all been elevated. “If I can use a term that might not exist, we’ve ‘resortified’ this hotel,” says Koth.
“The Emirates Palace is a landmark and it is unique in everything that we are — by dimensions, by costs, by resources. And for someone who comes here and has no real impression of what it is, hearing ‘palace’ might not necessarily put them at ease.
“So by resortification, I mean the choice of colours we went for, and our design brief to the architects and designers, was really: mellow it down. We’ve got enough opulence everywhere, but we want to make this wonderful gold look more contemporary and relevant.”
As part of its new look and feel, the property is offering dedicated vegan rooms. The six units, in the property’s West Wing, are entirely free from animal products, with wooden floors instead of wool-based carpets, faux leather furniture, feather-free duvets, plant-based amenities in the bathrooms, a vegan in-room dining menu and minibars that are stocked with almond and oat milk options, as well as a choice of kombuchas.
Scroll through the gallery for more pictures of the vegan rooms at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental
"We wish to stimulate a wave of hospitality providers to continue doing what we do,” Koth says of the initiative. “That is the challenge to come. When veganism is helped by us to become more mainstream, and not tucked away into a small niche, that is the real deal for us.”
But while new rooms, restaurants and entertainment options will form an integral part of the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental as it enters a new era in its evolution, the biggest change that guests will encounter is not physical.
“The most important transformation is that we are bringing the people-centricity of Mandarin Oriental, and the heritage of our culture, which is deeply rooted in Hong Kong Chinese humility and behaviours and values. And that is a journey that cannot be achieved overnight. It took us three years.”
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Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
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- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
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“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
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