The most luxurious hotel with gold ceilings.

Valued at $3 billion, the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi was considered the most expensive hotel since its opening in 2005. All hallways, bedrooms, and lobbies are adorned with over 1,000 Swarovski chandeliers. This is also the highlight, accentuating the iconic gold-plated ceilings of this palace-like hotel.

Sắc vàng đặc trưng tại khách sạn Emirates Palace — The distinctive yellow color at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

However, after more than a decade since its opening, maintaining the hotel's luxurious ambiance has proven to be quite costly. Manoj Kuriakose, who is in charge of this task, and his team are responsible for maintaining 2,000 square meters.²The ceiling is elaborately designed with expensive gold and silver leaf. Gold leaf typically only lasts 4 to 5 years, so it always needs regular maintenance and replacement.

The price of luxury

For every 1 meter²The ceiling requires 50 gold leaves, with a total value of up to $100. Every day, Mr. Kuriakose replaces the gold leaf for about 4 to 6 meters of ceiling.²The ceilings are covered in gold leaf, meaning the hotel spends up to $130,000 annually just to replace these gold leaf details. Mr. Kuriakose emphasized, "Step into any corner of the palace, and you will be overwhelmed by the gold and silver leaf details."

Hơn 3 tỉ USD đã được chi trả cho việc xây dựng khách sạn Emirates Palace — Over $3 billion has been spent on the construction of the Emirates Palace hotel.

Pure gold leaf is imported from Italy, then rolled thin, pressed, and hammered in the middle of vellum—a type of pure parchment paper—until it becomes fine and beautiful. Once the gold leaf is prepared, the craftsman paints a warm red paint on the ceiling, then uses a special adhesive to bond the gold leaf to the ceiling.

Trang thông tin du lịch và phong cách sống Travellive+

The delicate leaves

Khách sạn trải dài trên hơn 1 km từ bờ đông sang bờ tây — The hotel stretches for over 1 km from the east to the west coast.

What's special here is that each gold leaf is meticulously decorated by the skilled hands of the artisans. They shared, "We have to fix each one individually 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're not careful, even a very small touch of your finger can cause the leaf to break."

After the design is complete, these craftsmen will apply a final protective coat of paint to the leaves to ensure they are optimally protected.

Màu vàng óng ánh sang trọng chính là điểm nhấn đặc biệt của khách sạn — The luxurious, shimmering gold color is the hotel's special highlight.

With the hotel's grounds stretching over 1 km from east to west shore, maintaining and repairing these gold and silver leaf decorations is truly an endless process. However, this also means that no other hotel in the world possesses such a massive amount of decorative gold leaf. And that's precisely why so many tourists flock to the Emirates Palace Hotel to see firsthand and learn about the design process behind this world-class 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/

GUIDE TO SELF-APPLYING FOR AN E-VISA ON THE EMIRATES WEBSITE

+ Log in to Emirates.com using your registered account or go to Manage Booking to enter your last name and booking reference.

+ Select the "Apply for UAE visa" option, and you will be redirected to the VFS Global Services website.

Required documents include: a completed personal information form, a color scan of the passport information page, and a color passport-sized photograph.

Additionally, to increase your chances of visa approval, you can submit the following:

- Valid visa or proof of travel to the following countries (entry and exit stamps): Australia, Europe, the UK, the US, Canada, and New Zealand within the last 5 years. If you had a US visa 2 years ago but haven't actually traveled there, it will not be accepted.

- Proof of financial resources: a bank deposit or savings account of USD 8,000 (rounded to a nice number of 200 million VND) or proof of annual income of USD 8,000.

In some cases, a marriage certificate may be required.

If you already have a UAE visa: Submit a scanned copy of your European visa; no proof of financial means is required.

Deposit: When applying for a visa, you will have to pay various fees including the visa application fee, deposit, service fee, and VAT. The stated deposit, equivalent to 6 million VND, will be refunded to your account within 4 working days from the date of departure from Dubai.

If your visa is rejected, you will still lose the fee but your deposit will be refunded. If successful, you will receive the visa via email, then simply print it out and bring it with you. According to Islamic culture, the traveler's full name is often accompanied by the father's name.