How times change. With the opening of the new Four Seasons Hotel on Abu Dhabi’s Al Maryah Island this week, the capital not only chalked up its 41st five-star establishment but added an extra 200 rooms to the 29,000 already available.
Back in the early 70s however, the situation was very different. Built in 1973 at the western end of Abu Dhabi’s Corniche on a plot that was then effectively out of town, the Hilton was Abu Dhabi’s first international hotel and was constructed at a time when the city was experiencing a wave of unprecedented development thanks to a boom in oil prices.
Abu Dhabi didn’t have any tourists at the time – tourist visas didn’t exist – but there was an increasing number of business travellers, airline crews and expatriates living in the city, and many locals were drawn to the hotel’s tennis courts, swimming pool and restaurants.
The 10-storey Hilton, pictured in 1977 above, no longer stands shoulder-to-shoulder, let alone eye-to-eye, with its vertiginous neighbours but in its 46th year the hotel continues to be a fixture in the city’s social life and is a reminder of an earlier generation of its architectural ambition.
* Nick Leech
At a glance - Zayed Sustainability Prize 2020
Launched: 2008
Categories: Health, energy, water, food, global high schools
Prize: Dh2.2 million (Dh360,000 for global high schools category)
Winners’ announcement: Monday, January 13
Impact in numbers
335 million people positively impacted by projects
430,000 jobs created
10 million people given access to clean and affordable drinking water
50 million homes powered by renewable energy
6.5 billion litres of water saved
26 million school children given solar lighting
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
