Hotel Le Bristol, one of the world's leading hotel, will open a new one in the Gulf booming capital of Abu Dhabi in 2012, local daily The National reported Thursday.
The ultra-luxury hotel, to be called Le Bristol Abu Dhabi, would cost about 600 million dirhams (about 163.3 million U.S. dollars), according to the National Corporation for Tourism and Hotels, a government joint venture to promote Abu Dhabi tourism.
Construction on Le Bristol Abu Dhabi would start in about a year and was likely to take about 24 months to complete, said Frank Marrenbach, the chief executive of the European luxury hotel company Oetker Hotel Collection, which will manage the property.
The hotel's design will not be a carbon copy of Hotel Le Bristol Paris, which is named as the world's best hotel in 2008 by the prestigious financial publication, Institutional Investor magazine, Marrenbach said.
Le Bristol Abu Dhabi will be a blend of "French savoir-vivre and traditional Arabian hospitality," the daily quoted Marrenbach as saying.
The announcement of the new luxury hotel came as global tourism has been hit by the economic crisis. Hotels in Abu Dhabi, capital of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE), have cut the room rates by 15 percent on average.
Marrenbach said, however, that the global downturn is an ideal time to begin such a project because construction materials are cheaper and the competition is less.
The Middle East region is promising in economic growth and particularly Abu Dhabi, which "shows the most robust economy, even during this time," he added.
Luxury hotel companies have kept their eyes on the UAE since the country stunned the world with double-digit growth rates in the past few years, benefiting from the rocketing oil prices.