Dubai: A new hotel for animals is expected to open doors by the end of 2013 in Dubai, officials have revealed.
Four-legged guests will have dressing and grooming rooms, therapy sessions, laundry services, playgrounds, air-conditioning, supervisors and vets.
The 835-square-metre hotel is part of a new birds market project of Dubai Municipality (DM) coming up in Al Warsan area. The hotel is expected to receive pets, mostly dogs and cats, of residents going abroad on holiday, said Maher Al Hawarenah, principal architecture design engineer at DM’s General Projects Department.
Pet owners would be able to monitor the hotel guests online, he added.
Al Hawarenah told Gulf News the hotel will be based on a ground-level floor, with ‘doors’ in dog ‘rooms’ that would allowed them to step outside at will into an enclosure.
There will be a clinic and quarantine facility nearby in the new birds market. His comments follow news that the upcoming market is 52 per cent ready.
DM Director General Hussain Lootah recently reviewed the progress of the Dh54.1m market project during an official visit. Lootah said that the project is expected to be completed by November 2013.
The 50-hectare development includes an administration block, a block for holding auctions, clinic block, health quarry, labour accommodation, and the animal hotel.
The new market will be thrice as big compared to the current domestic animals market in Dubai. A birds market in Deira, close to the fish market, is comparatively tiny.
Lootah added that he project was initiated after a study on the circumstances and requirements of a domestic animals market in Dubai and after considering the opinions of traders.
He said it would have a positive impact on business considering the availability of related services such as specialised clinics, places for selling accessories, food and auctions.
“We hope that the project will boost both the trade and tourism in the shade of a new sophisticated bird market in Dubai,” Lootah said.
There are an estimated 80 pet stores in Bur Dubai and Deira.
According to a DM survey, Emiratis traders are the biggest group – 44 per cent – in the local pets and birds trade. They are followed by Indians, who comprise more than a quarter of the trader profile. Pakistanis are the next largest group, at 19 per cent; Arabs seven per cent and other nationalities four per cent.
