Barely a year after Las Vegas casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. announced plans for a $4 billion resort in the United Arab Emirates, the area is crawling with construction workers erecting five-star resorts, shops and $7 million villas in what developers expect will become a major tourist hotspot.
Before that deal, the artificial Marjan islands off the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, or RAK, had spent most of the past decade as a lost opportunity, a 2.7 square-kilometer (1 square mile) white elephant largely unused after a $1 billion football-themed resort and related Real Madrid academy was scrapped for the site.
These days, every lot is sold and cranes are rising faster than the morning desert heat. Hoardings around construction sites are plastered with signs advertising the coming homes. At least 20 developers have projects in various stages of design and construction on the islands, said Abdulla Al Abdouli, chief executive officer of the state entity that developed them. He expects most projects to be completed within just six years.
The new construction will cost billions of dollars, he says. But even he’s not sure exactly how many.
Anticipating the rush of new visitors, the emirate’s small international airport is planning to build a new terminal to boost capacity to 2 million passengers a year by 2027, almost triple the some 700,000 travelers anticipated this year. About one-third of the world’s population lives within a four-hour flight.
Ras Al Khaimah, which means the head of the tent in Arabic, has a 40 mile coastline on the Persian Gulf and until now has largely catered to Russian tourists looking for a cheaper alternative to Dubai. The Marjan islands, roughly half the size of Dubai’s famous Palm Jumeirah, were completed in 2013.
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