How About Dubai For Your Next Event?

Last week I visited Dubai to take part in the M&I Forum which was held at the JW Marriot Marquis.  It is the world’s tallest hotel and opened in 2013, with a 2nd tower of bedrooms added in 2015.  This is a great hotel for events and as there are 1,628 bedrooms it has the capacity for large groups.  There are more than 400 twin rooms which is the largest twin inventory in Dubai.

All of the meeting rooms, most of the restaurants, leisure facilities and public space is on floors 1-6 of the building.  There are two ballrooms: the Dubai ballroom which can hold 1,500 people in theatre style and the Emirates ballroom for 900 in theatre style and can be divided into 6 sections and there are no pillars.  In addition there are 30 more meeting rooms of various sizes.  There is only one area of outside space, which is the terrace area by the swimming pool which can take 600 for a drinks reception or 350 for dinner.

There are 14 food outlets, Kitchen 6 has multiple food stations with food from around the world. Any restaurants can be privatised for groups and the Steak restaurant on the 68th floor has great views and a private dining room. 

There is building work going on around the hotel as well an extension to the creek so it will come right up to the building.

The service and food was excellent everywhere I went in Dubai.

On two evenings whilst I was there, we went offsite for dinner.  One was held at Atlantis the Palm on a terrace with access to the beach.  The area easily accommodated 450 people with space for entertainment and the transfer took about 40 minutes from the JW Marriott.  The other was at the golf club belonging to the InterContinental Festival City, with a transfer of 30 minutes.  This is a modern building with outside terrace and grass area overlooking the golf course and lake.

• What to do when you’re in Dubai

Three hours were allocated one afternoon for various activities that the group could take part in to see a bit of Dubai.  I chose a tour called Historic Dubai and we visited a mosque, followed by the wholesale silk souk, then took small wooden boat across the creek to see the spice souk and gold souk. It was very interesting and although the gold souk was very modern and ‘bling’.  Other activities offered were: dune bashing in the desert, boat trip, visit to Dubai Mall and the top of Burj Khalifa, seaplane flight and indoor snow skiing at the snowpark.

• Getting to Dubai

I travelled with Emirates and the flight was excellent.  Dubai Airport is the world’s largest in terms of passenger numbers and there is another airport planned to be built between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There will be 6 parallel runways and it will be completed by 2020 when Expo takes place in the UAE

The transfer from the airport to the hotel was 25 mins to hotel and there was no traffic.

The UAE is also building the world’s fastest train which will connect Dubai with Abu Dhabi in 10 minutes!