With a value of 3 billion USD, Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi has been considered the most expensive hotel since it opened in 2005. All corridors, bedrooms and lobby are decorated with more than 1,000 Swarovski chandeliers, which also highlight the palace hotel's iconic gold-decorated ceilings.
The signature yellow color at Emirates Palace Hotel
However, more than a decade after its opening, maintaining the hotel’s luxury has come at a significant cost to the hotel itself. Mr. Manoj Kuriakose, who is in charge of this job, and his team are responsible for maintaining 2,000 m2The ceiling is elaborately designed with expensive gold and silver leaves. Gold leaves usually only last 4 to 5 years, so it needs constant maintenance and replacement.
The price of luxury
Every 1 meter2The ceiling requires 50 gold leaves, worth a total of $100. Every day, Mr. Kuriakose replaces the gold leaves on about 4 to 6 meters.2ceilings, which means the hotel spends up to $130,000 a year just to replace these gold leaf details. “You can walk into any corner of the palace and you will be overwhelmed by the gold and silver leaf details here,” Mr. Kuriakose emphasized.
More than $3 billion has been spent on the construction of the Emirates Palace hotel.
The pure gold sheets are imported from Italy and are then rolled, pressed, and hammered between vellum – a pure leather – until they become thinner and more beautiful. Once the gold leaf is ready, the craftsman paints the ceiling with a warm red paint, then uses a special glue to adhere the gold leaf to the ceiling.
The fragile leaves
The hotel stretches over 1 km from east to west coast.
What is special here is that each gold leaf is carefully decorated by the skilled fingers of the craftsmen. They shared: “We have to fix each one and be extremely careful because they are very fragile.” Mr. Kuriakose further explained: “These leaves are very thin and can break at any time. When you pick it up, if you are not careful, just a very small impact of your finger can break the leaf.”
Once the design is complete, the craftsmen will apply a final coat of protective paint to the leaves to ensure they are optimally protected.
The luxurious shimmering gold color is the special highlight of the hotel.
With the hotel area stretching over 1 km from the east to the west bank, the maintenance and repair of these gold and silver leaves is truly a never-ending cycle. However, this also means that there is certainly no hotel in the world that owns such a huge amount of decorative gold leaves as here. And that is also the reason why so many tourists come to Emirates Palace Hotel to admire and learn about the design stages of this international 5-star hotel.
Emirates Palace Hotel
Address: West Corniche Road – United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 2 690 9000
Website: https://www.kempinski.com/en/abudhabi/emirates-palace/
INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLYING FOR E-VISA ON THE EMIRATES WEBSITE
+ Log in to Emirates.com with your registered account or go to Manage Booking to enter your Last Name and Booking Reference.
+ Select “Apply for UAE visa”, you will be transferred to the website of VFS Global Services.
+ Required documents include: personal information form, color scan of passport information page, color photo.
+ In addition, to increase the chance of getting a visa, you can submit:
- Valid visa or proof of travel to countries (entry and exit stamps): Australia, Europe, UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand within the past 5 years. If you had a US visa 2 years ago but have not actually traveled, it will not be accepted.
- Financial proof: deposit, savings book of 8,000 USD (rounded to 200 million) or proof of annual income of 8,000 USD.
+ In some cases, you will be required to provide a marriage certificate.
If you already have a UAE visa: Submit a scanned copy of your European visa, no proof of financial resources required.
Deposit: when applying for a visa, you will have to pay the visa application fee, deposit, service fee, VAT. The announced deposit equivalent to 6 million VND will be returned to your account within 4 working days from the date of departure from Dubai.
If your visa is refused, you will still lose the fee but your deposit will be refunded. If successful, you will receive your visa via email, then just print it out and take it with you. According to Islamic culture, the tourist's full name is also attached to the father's name.
