Abu Dhabi's first Ritz-Carlton to open by year end

Hotel owning company Abu Dhabi National Hotels is targeting an end of 2011 opening date for The Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi Grand Canal, CEO Richard Riley told Hotelier Middle East.

“I will be pushing very hard to get it open before the end of the year, that’s what we’re doing, I’m not going to nail it down but the bottom line is we feel we’re very, very close and we just hope if everything will stay on schedule that we’ll be able to pull it off,” said Riley.

ADNH is investing AED 1.5 billion in the property, which is located on a 230,000m² site.

The hotel features a total of 532 rooms of a minimum size of 52m², a 2200m² ESPA spa, an 1700m² ballroom and an 1800m² main swimming pool.

It has been designed by American architecture firm Otak with interiors by SFA Design.

The property was previously signed as a JW Marriott, but Riley spearheaded the transition to Ritz-Carlton — Marriott’s top luxury brand — because of the quality of the product.

“It was a natural migration but it was very difficult to do because of the fact that it was signed as a JW Marriott,” he said.

“It was a natural migration but it was very difficult to do because of the fact that it was signed as a JW Marriott,” said Riley.

“To migrate a management agreement, although it’s partner companies, is a very different approach and it took us seven months to go through every detail of the management agreement and make the adjustments and do the deal and work back and forth and it was a very big challenge. But they wanted it, we wanted to, they love the property, they believe in the property and because of that we were able to get to it, but it took seven months,” he explained.