Dubai To Open New Hotel For Pets

Eng. Hussain Nassir Lootah , Director General of Dubai Municipality showing officials round the new birds market
Eng. Hussain Nassir Lootah , Director General of Dubai Municipality showing officials round the new birds market

A new hotel for animals is expected to be opened by the end of 2013 in the tourist city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, officials have revealed.

Tourists who wish to keep their pets somewhere while they enjoy the beautiful Asian city as well as residents who wish to keep their pets under great care while they travel abroad, will be able to lodge their pets where they will have dressing and grooming rooms, therapy sessions, laundry services, playgrounds, air-conditioning, supervisors and vets.

The 835-square-metre hotel is part of a new birds market project of Dubai Municipality (DM) coming up in Al Warsan area. The hotel is expected to receive pets, mostly dogs and cats, of residents going abroad on holiday, said Maher Al Hawarenah, principal architecture design engineer at DM’s General Projects Department.

Pet owners would be able to monitor the hotel guests online, he added.

Al Hawarenah said the hotel will be based on a ground-level floor, with ‘doors’ in dog ‘rooms’ that would allowed them to step outside at will into an enclosure.

There will be a clinic and quarantine facility nearby in the new birds market. His comments follow news that the upcoming market is 52 per cent ready.

DM Director General Hussain Lootah recently reviewed the progress of the Dh54.1m market project during an official visit. Lootah said that the project is expected to be completed by November 2013.

The 50-hectare development includes an administration block, a block for holding auctions, clinic block, health quarry, labour accommodation, and the animal hotel.

The new market will be thrice as big compared to the current domestic animals market in Dubai. A birds market in Deira, close to the fish market, is comparatively tiny.

Lootah added that he project was initiated after a study on the circumstances and requirements of a domestic animals market in Dubai and after considering the opinions of traders.

He said it would have a positive impact on business considering the availability of related services such as specialised clinics, places for selling accessories, food and auctions.

“We hope that the project will boost both the trade and tourism in the shade of a new sophisticated bird market in Dubai,” Lootah said.