Press

High-end fashion is moving from the runway to popular holiday destinations, with a number of key fashion designers turning their talents to luxury hotels and resorts around the world. From Oscar de la Renta in The Dominican Republic to Armani in Dubai, fashion-conscious travellers and lovers of luxury can experience haute-couture like never before with Hotels.com’s top ten hotels designed by fashion icons.

This is the Dubai Mall — an absolutely massive shopping center in Dubai, UAE that's part of the $20 billion Burj Khalifa complex. It first opened in 2008 to much fanfare, and it boasts a variety of things to do aside from shop at its 600+ stores. The mall has a 22-screen movie theater, a replica of London's Regent Street, an Olympic-sized ice skating rink and much more.

Today’s highest skyscraper -- the 818-meter (2,684-foot) Burj Khalifa in Dubai -- is set to be overtaken by the 1 kilometer Kingdom Tower in Jeddah when it’s completed in 2018. Developing countries are eclipsing the U.S. and Europe in the “megatall” category of 600-meter-plus buildings, fueled by faster economic growth and a desire to show off their wealth.

The tallest building in the world is, by definition, quite visible. So it makes some sense that the creators of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai were fastidious about the look of the tower—right down to the font faces in the parking garage. Austrialia's Emerystudio, the firm designing the building's wayfinding systems—the signage that directs visitors around the huge structure—wanted to employ Arabic typography that'd be distinctive, legible, and harmonious when placed next to Latin lettering.

The Burj Al Arab, the Princess Tower in Dubai and The Landmark, Abu Dhabi (under-construction) have one thing in common. They are all on a list of ‘must-climbs’ for Spiderman. Alain Robert, the real life “Spiderman”, who has successfully climbed the 828-metre high Burj Khalifa and 70 other skyscrapers around the world, says buildings in the UAE are top of his “wish list”.

Living in the world’s tallest tower is now just a thousand dirhams away, if advertisements on Dubai-based websites are to be believed. The owner of a one-bed apartment in Burj Khalifa is leasing his flat for Dh999 per day. That is close to 40 per cent cheaper than the average daily rate of a deluxe room in the Armani Hotel, also in the Burj Khalifa.

Although Ramadan is often considered a slowdown period for the property sector, Dubai’s property transactions reached Dh2.2 billion in August, slightly higher than the same period last year, Dubai Land Department data reveals. Dubai Marina topped the chart of areas with maximum number of transactions, while Burj Khalifa area topped the list in value terms.

A top structural engineer, who worked on designing the world's tallest tower, says the Burj Khalifa's "buttressed core design" holds the key to building super skyscrapers of the future. William Baker, a structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill who worked with Adrian Smith on designing the system that allowed Burj Khalifa to be built, believes the buttressed core design can be used to build structures even taller than the world’s tallest tower.

New Dubai scores high when it comes to the most sought-after residential communities in the city this year, according to real estate agencies. According to Better Homes, Dubai Marina beats all other communities when it comes to rent. “The most popular residential areas in leasing for the first half of this year was Dubai Marina,” Annetta Shaw, Head of Residential Sales and Leasing, Head Office,

An international consortium, led by Turner Project Management, the project management consultant for Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, are to build the tallest statue in the world in India. The Times of India reported on Wednesday that the consortium signed an agreement with the Gujarat government for "engineering, design and contract management" to construct the 182-metre-high Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel.