Welcome 
to the 
oldest
 hotel

BACK IN THE days when miles of sand stretched as far as the eye could see in what is now the green city of Al Ain, a Japanese restaurant — soon to open in the Bedouin city — would have seemed amusing at best. Yet, a luxurious hotel was not out of place, especially since a ruling shaikh’s wedding demanded an adequate venue. This is how the story of Hilton Al Ain begins, the oldest international chain hotel in UAE, which this year celebrates its 40^th anniversary.

“Actually, the construction of the hotel began in 1968 and it finished in March 1971, when it was inaugurated by His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed, now the President of UAE,” explained Adham El Sebaey, general manager of Hilton Al Ain.

“Originally it was build to host a royal wedding and ever since it has became a favourite with the local community. We even have one Emirati person who comes here every day since the hotel opened. He often sits at that table over there,” added El Sebaey, pointing towards one of the tables in the atrium’s cafe.

Older than UAE itself, Hilton Al Ain was one of the very few concrete buildings in the city in those days. In fact, the only other one known to exist was the Oasis hospital, built some 50 years ago.

It started out with 76 rooms spread across five floors. There was only one restaurant, Al Jahli, serving buffet lunch and dinner, as well as a coffee shop, and there was even an outdoor swimming pool. All the management staff was brought over from Hilton Kuwait, which was the first Hilton built in the Gulf region. The hotel’s cost was 18 million Bahraini Dinar, the currency used in Abu Dhabi emirate from 1966 till 1973, when the UAE Dirham was introduced.

“Back then, Shaikh Zayed used to bring many delegations to Hilton Al Ain, as it was the only place that had a conference hall in the city. It was a long and hard journey from Abu Dhabi, since there was no highway yet and people still had to drive through the desert,” said El Sebaey.

“Over the years, we had many famous people staying at Hilton Al Ain, people like Mohammed Ali, Queen Elizabeth II or even the tallest man in the world.”

Also over the years, roads, shops, and green parks began to change the bare desert landscape that surrounded the hotel in the early 70s. The first major change to the building itself came in 1991, when 49 chalets were built. Then, in 1994, an entire new wing was added, along with the famous atrium that now houses the lobby cafe. More ribbons were cut in 1998, when a family swimming pool, close to the original lap pool, as well as an Italian restaurant, were opened.

“Last year we renovated the old wing, the original 1971 Hilton, making the rooms bigger, so they are now 30 square meters. They also have new layout, bathrooms and furniture,” said El Sebaey, adding that this year the renovation continues with the new 1994 wing.

“We had front of house renovations many times, but this is actually the first time we are doing the back of house renovations, meaning that we go beyond wall paintings, doing full refurbishment, including plumbing and electrics.”

All in all, Hilton Al Ain grew to have 202 rooms, suites and chalets, six restaurants, cafes and bars, a 90 square meters gym with pretty high-tech equipment, the biggest in Al Ain, and a rather cool Hiltonia Club House. There is a supervised indoors playing area for children, while outdoors there are twisted toboggans landing in the pool, along with slides and jet fountains. There are even regular parties held around the family swimming pool and the latest — and quite catchy idea - was to place the DJ right in the middle of the pool by creating a platform for his equipment and a bridge for all the cables. A golf course and tennis courts are also part of the Hiltonia Club.

The ballroom that hosted the royal wedding for which the hotel was built, able to host 650 people, is now fitted with panels that can split it into three separate meeting rooms. Located on the city’s outskirts, right before the border with Oman, Hilton Al Ain is quite far out from all Al Ain’s attractions, its museums, zoo, oasis or water park.

“The location is remote, but it turned out to be in our advantage. It is very quiet and peaceful, it has a lot of greenery, and it has easy access to the main road. All the rooms have great views too, either of the pool and gardens or the Hafeet Mountains,” pointed out El Sebaey.

The hotel’s popularity is reflected in the 70 per cent annual occupancy, which is a mix of business and leisure guests. Hilton’s cafes and restaurants also attract quite a lot of daily local customers, especially since the outlets keep on diversifying.

“We are very active in food and beverages outlets changing,” mentioned El Sebaey.

This action taking doesn’t resume just to menu changing. Pacos, the Tex-Mex pub style restaurant, got a new outdoor terrace a couple of years ago. Casa Romana, closed during this Ramadan, is getting a complete new look and a new chef too. In fact, El Sebaey is looking for a real good Italian chef to take over the kitchen.

Makani, the outdoor Arabic cafe, was designed two years ago according to what El Sebaey had in mind. “Makani is my place,” he laughs.

“It is a beautiful cafe, in the garden, with the pool around it. We do fresh manakeesh here, there are all kinds of shisha, and the Syrian chef will partially cook the barbeque in the kitchen, but it will finish it at your table.”

The boldest change of them all, it’s got to be a new authentic Japanese restaurant — the first in town — that will be left into the hands of a Japanese chef, when it will open this November, replacing the existing Persian one.

“The market has changed a lot in Al Ain. If we tried to have Japanese cuisine here 20 years ago, people would not have understood. We did, actually, open a Chinese restaurant in 1991, but we had to close it down because the local population was not ready for such a foreign cuisine. Now there are more expats, more Europeans, Americans and many other nationalities living in Al Ain, so Asian food is a lot more popular,” mentioned El Sebaey.

And who knows, if tuna sashimi will not wet the residents’ appetite, a camel sushi might just be a happy compromise.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com