Features

The road to riches

26 Jan 2009 by Sara Turner

Abu Dhabi’s strength springs as much from the lessons of the past as the oil powering its development, finds Tom Otley.

All over the world, quietly, and without any of the fanfare that accompanied the initial announcements, developments are being shelved. The scale models still exist in sales office lobbies, the press releases are forever out there in the public domain, but in reality these proposals have been postponed, delayed or cancelled. All over the world, building sites have grown quiet.

Apart from in Abu Dhabi. This tiny emirate, the capital of the UAE federation also including Dubai, Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain, is a case apart. It has 10 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves. That’s less than countries such as Saudi Arabia, but it also has a tiny population.

Estimates differ, but the population of the whole of the UAE will reach only five million by the end of this year, of whom about 20 per cent are Emirati, the rest being expatriates drawn by the opportunities and lifestyle on offer in the emirates.

The majority of that five million live in Dubai and Abu Dhabi (about three million in total), and that means the emirate has an awful lot of money for only a very few people – so much so that recently a rumour spread around the world that Abu Dhabi was going to buy 30 per cent of Dubai’s airline, Emirates, since Dubai was a little short towards year-end. It didn’t matter that everyone from Tim Clark, president of Emirates, to James Hogan, CEO of Etihad, denied it; there was enough chill wind blowing through the region for it to be taken seriously, or at least discussed with a straight face. Times are hard, even in the UAE, but for Abu Dhabi, with its tiny population and almost unlimited wealth, such days bring even more opportunities.

In this environment, it seemed appropriate that after last November’s Mumbai terrorist outrages forced the England cricket team to suspend its tour of India, when they returned in December they did so via the safe haven of Abu Dhabi (although the emirate can’t yet control the weather – the practice match was washed out by unseasonably heavy rains).

And as you’d expect for a place with so much money, sport plays a big part in Abu Dhabi’s seasonal attractions. Last month saw tennis players Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer playing in an exhibition tournament, while Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Trevor Immelman and Ian Poulter teed off in the European PGA Tour-sanctioned Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.

It’s a far cry from 60 years ago, when Abu Dhabi island was home to 2,000 people. Pearling, then the main industry, was a seasonal occupation for its residents, many of whom had homes in the cooler oasis town of Al Ain, a week’s journey inland.

So where does the success come from? A cynic might say from having lots of money (it’s amazing how clear your strategy is with an unlimited budget). But Abu Dhabi’s willingness to expand its sources of revenue while at the same time going at its own pace and not attempting to compete with the neighbours has reaped rewards. A few years ago it might have been termed a slowcoach, but the pace of development was still prodigious compared with anywhere else in the world, bar Dubai.

The most important event was the discovery of oil in 1958. The ruler, Sheikh Shakhbut Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was cautious but in 1966 his brother Sheikh Zayed used the money to begin improving the infrastructure of Abu Dhabi and to diversify away from oil, a process continued by his son, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In this, lessons were learnt from the past, as can be seen if you pay a visit to the Heritage Village on the breakwater (for a larger exhibition, the museum at Al Ain is also worth visiting).

Here there are mementoes from the boom time of pearl fishing in the 1920s: measuring tools, sieves and scales, books used by the traders, microscopes and instruments to extract the pearls as well as brushes and the coins that came with the trade. Yet this industry was quickly decimated by the production of cultured pearls by the Japanese in the 1930s, along with the Great Depression. With the gift of hindsight, hopefully Abu Dhabi has learnt the dangers of being too dependent on one industry.

The only building of any stature surviving from that time is the Qasr Al Hosn (White Fort), the seat of government until the 1960s. It is currently being turned into a museum with exhibits on the history of the emirate and its ruling Al Nahyan family. A complete family tree in English and Arabic is framed on a wall on the second floor of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage building next door.

The growth driven by the Al Nahyan family has been amply illustrated in recent years by its national airline, Etihad. Established in November 2003, it now carries six million passengers to 48 destinations worldwide, with 42 aircraft and an astonishing 200 on order, including ten A380 superjumbos. It’s a record that only neighbouring airline Emirates can match, but Etihad is attempting something different, according to its executive vice-president of marketing, Peter Baumgartner. “We need to consider whether we should be an Arabic brand talking to the world, or a global brand bringing the world to Abu Dhabi,” he says. “The decision is that we should represent modern Arabia while embracing the best the world has to offer.”

The focus of so many in Abu Dhabi is on the future but, in truth, many developments are still a few years away. Staying in one of the latest hotels to open, the Shangri-La Hotel Qaryat Al Beri (see Tried and Tested, overleaf), is impressive, not only for the standard of accommodation and service but for its location opposite the almost-finished Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque, in an area called “Between the Bridges” – literally, the area between the bridges of Mussafah, which carries Airport Road out to Abu Dhabi International airport 20km away, and Al Maqta. It’s an expansion of Abu Dhabi away from the Corniche, where the Emirates Palace, Sheraton and many of the other five-star hotels are located.

It is also the first part of a major development featuring new Shangri-La Residences and a huge shopping mall, which in turn is to be connected to Shangri-La’s four-star deluxe brand, Traders Hotel, and the recently opened Souk shopping mall. The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority anticipates the opening of 4,000 new hotel rooms in the emirate by the end of the year, taking the total to 17,000, with an eventual target of 30,000 rooms by 2013. But for many developers, 2009 will run into 2010 before their properties are ready for visitors, hardly surprising given their ambitious plans.

In the meantime, visitors straying from their swimming pools in search of culture are likely to find it in the Heritage Village, where timber boards criss-cross water channels and tall date palms provide cover from the sun for the crops underneath. (To see the real thing, visit Al Ain.)

Even with all the construction taking place, Abu Dhabi is living up to Sheikh Zayed’s vision of being a “green” city, although perhaps not in the way we usually mean. There is estimated to be 41 million date palms in the emirate, and each one of them requires water at a cost of 2 Dhs (36p) per tree per day – that’s more than £5 million a day. It’s desalinated water, but it’s also the sort of cost that only an emirate with about 10 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves would attempt. After all, in Abu Dhabi, a gallon of petrol is cheaper than a gallon of water.

What's online

Browse our website for more on Abu Dhabi:

  • For details of ongoing developments, hotels, art galleries and museums, click here for Iain Akerman’s article “Culture club”.
  • For info on desert and wildlife trips, click here for Tom Otley’s “Morning glory”.
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