A special lighting system will add a shimmering wave effect to the area. A special lighting system will add a shimmering wave effect to the area.

JA Resorts & Hotels has invested a hefty AED 500 million (about US $136 million) to once again own and operate a beach hotel in one of its favourite Dubai spots ‘The Walk JBR’, in the emirate’s popular marina area.

The Ocean View Hotel, dubbed the only four-star beach hotel in Dubai, is located minutes away from the site of the old Oasis Beach Hotel which was run by JA Hotels & Resorts, formerly Jebel Ali International Hotels, for a decade before it was closed by its owner Al Fattan Properties on August 29, 2008 before being demolished.

At the time, JA Resorts & Hotels said it was not the firm’s decision to close the hotel: “It is all part of being in Dubai and seeing this extraordinary city constantly reinvent itself."

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Just over four years on and it is the company that has reinvented itself as JA Resorts & Hotels, following an 18-month rebranding process costing several million dollars in line with its international expansion strategy, having operated in the UAE for 30 years.

And it is no coincidence that the first hotel to open under the new JA Resorts & Hotels brand guidelines is on The Walk, where it also operates Oasis Beach Tower hotel apartments.

“It’s a fantastic area for a hotel. We had a four-star [hotel] that we used to run here,” says director of sales and marketing Anabela Radosevic, fondly referring to the old Oasis Beach Hotel.

“It was less competition then - a different time - but the hotel used to run at 91% occupancy year round, which in a hotel is almost impossible.

Plus on many occasions we would have a higher average rate than five-star competition just because of the popularity of the property so that gives us a great confidence that our new four-star property will have its clientele, there’s a market niche,” Radosevic asserts.

Ocean View Hotel and Oasis Beach Tower cluster general manager William Harley-Fleming says JA Resorts & Hotels had had its eye on the new property for some time.

“The property is very much the one we wanted to add to our portfolio within the area. We’ve invested a considerable amount of money to refurbish it,” he says.

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