Dubai: The first property in the hospitality cluster that forms the ‘Jewel of the Creek’ located off Dubai’s Maktoum Bridge is now scheduled for an opening in the first quarter of 2018, according to the developer, revising the earlier estimate of sometime late this this year.
The project encompassing more than 1 million square feet is already fairly advanced on the infrastructure side and in creating a marina, an official added.
Expected to cost Dh2 billion, the first phase will feature a Roda-branded 500-room hotel, a waterfront setting with 28 F&B outlets and an 86-berth marina. The infrastructure component alone will cost Dh900 million.
“Once we have the first phase delivered, the other two phases will proceed quickly and everything will be in place before 2020,” said Imad Elias, CEO of Roda Hotels.
“All of the hotel components will feature the Roda branding, which includes a four-star hotel, a plug-and-play accommodation and another alcohol-free property.”
Roda Hotels is part of Dubai International Real Estate. The Jewel of the Creek, which carries a development tag of Dh4 billion, will create one of the last major stock of hotel rooms in a prime location near the Creek on the Deira side. In recent years, Dubai Festival City was the other development to feature multiple hotels on a single site.
Meanwhile, Roda Hotels has launched a new loyalty programme through an association with Elite Club. These can be used at the Roda Murooj — formerly a Rotana branded property — as well as the one in Al Barsha.
“We already have a base of 23,000 members from the region to come under the co-branded progamme,” said Elias.
“There are a lot of loyalty programmes out there in the town that don’t seem to have been created with much imagination. We wanted to change that perception — we need to because of the intense competition in the F&B sector from outlets located outside of hotels. Hotel operators have to come up with additional benefits that can attract clientele to hotel-operated F&B.”
