Abu Dhabi gains cachet

cities, Middle East/N.Africa — By Bob Riel on February 7, 2008 at 7:28 am

Not a lot of people have heard of Abu Dhabi and the city likely doesn’t top any lists of favorite tourist destinations. How many people even know, for instance, that it’s the political capital of the United Arab Emirates? And yet, according to this Chicago Tribune story, Abu Dhabi is the richest city in the world and is in the midst of a huge spending spree directed at tourists, including the building of large extensions of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. If nothing else, Abu Dhabi is certainly on the upswing in terms of the tourist industry.

Dubai is the sizzle. Abu Dhabi is the steak.

Dubai is the commercial hub of the United Arab Emirates that gets all the attention. Some 60 miles away, the nation’s political capital of Abu Dhabi has gone largely overlooked. But Abu Dhabi doesn’t have to stand for that anymore, and it isn’t going to.

Not that there’s a rivalry, but this city, widely regarded as the world’s richest, is spending $100 billion — that’s billion-with-a-B — on infrastructure over the next five years to change its numbers and attract more vacationers. A bigger airport, wider roads and dozens of developments that each measure in the tens of millions of square feet already are under construction, somehow without the frenzied sense of urgency that permeates Dubai.

The world’s only extension of Paris’ vaunted Louvre Museum will rise, all 258,000 square feet of it, here in Abu Dhabi. A 323,000-square-foot Guggenheim also is in the works. Look for them to open their doors in 2011-’12 on Saadiyat Island, a 10-square-mile natural formation that claims to be the largest single mixed-use development in the Arabian Gulf.