For several years, Dubai monopolized media attention with increasingly excessive and grandiose Middle Eastern tourism projects.
Recently, Abu Dhabi has also stepped up their tourism operations to divert some of this tourist traffic to their country, and now it’s Qatar turn to make a name for itself.
Surprisingly, the small emirate was awarded the organization of the FIFA World Cup in 2022. To host this event, Qatar will renovate its three stadiums and construct nine more at a cost of $3 billion, within its 12,000 square kilometres. To put this into perspective, imagine if Montreal or Toronto had 12 stadiums, all covered and air conditioned.
Now, Qatar is adding another ambitious project with the construction of an artificial island off the coast of the country’s capital, Doha, just as Dubai has done with The World and The Palm.
The Pearl island will add 32 km of coastline to the emirate and will host many high-rise apartments, a five-star hotel, a host of upscale restaurants and boutiques.
With this grand project, Qatar will allow foreigners to own property in their country for the first time. The country has been ruled by the al-Thani family since the mid-19th century and has transformed itself from a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling into an independent state with significant oil and natural gas revenues.