(Bloomberg) -- Hi, it’s Lisa Fleisher, your luxury correspondent in the Middle East. It’s about time for many lucky Gulf residents to settle back down after spending the summer traveling in cooler climes.

Chefs, hoteliers and club chief executive officers who had been posting across London, Ibiza, Mauritius, Las Vegas and beyond are back to posting from places closer to the Burj Khalifa. Invitations have been going out for events in September after a mostly quiet summer. But there’s been no slowing down of plans for expanding the region’s tourism industry or luxury presence, especially with buyers from China starting to come back to the property market. 

Here’s some of what I’ve been picking up lately.

Dubai Ties Up With Ibiza 

If you want to make sure you have access to the best DJs and entertainers, you’ve got to be a big player in the club scene. That’s what Five Holdings is getting with its purchase of hotel and nightclub assets from Universo Pacha SA, the Spanish company known for its properties in Ibiza and around the world.

  • Read More: The 12 Wildest Things I Learned as a Nightlife Concierge in Ibiza

The reported €320 million ($350 million) deal means that guests at Five Palm Jumeirah, which is known for its parties, will likely be waiting for the drop to come from bigger players on the circuit. That includes artist such as Solomun and Marco Carola. The deal means Five Holdings will take over the contracts for Pacha’s resident DJs and can coordinate schedules for artists to appear at the company’s other hotels. (This is the company that’s running a $14,000-an-hour party plane in the sky available for charter.)

Pacha was already in business with Five, having agreed to open its Lío cabaret show in Dubai in 2024 at the forthcoming Five Luxe hotel along the JBR Beach.

The acquisition also gives Five access to the eye-catching cherry branding from Pacha. And the company will gain leverage when making deals with alcohol companies, according to a person familiar with the matter, because of the combined purchasing power from the Dubai and Ibiza properties.

The Dubai Hotel Making It Rain

Real estate developer Josef Kleindienst explains to me the vision for Dubai’s World Islands—that man-made archipelago that has become a symbol of the emirate’s wild ambitions, despite remaining mostly empty since construction began 20 years ago. Each of the roughly 300 islands was named for a different countries or areas that loosely correlate to a map: Greece and Ireland in the Europe area, Lebanon in the Middle East area, Mexico linking the North American and South American “continents,” and so on.

“We are building a holiday place, a dream,” says Kleindienst, one of the first developers to actually open a hotel on the World. “You will be able to travel the world while you are in Dubai.” Anantara World Islands Resort opened with 70 rooms in December 2021, and other resorts are under construction or in planning.

His project, the Heart of Europe, is one of those kicking around longest. Last year, the Côte d’Azur Monaco opened on the island and is about to have a grand opening in October, when a cabaret and disco open. It’s the first of 20 planned hotels (with 4,000 rooms in total) across six islands. A beach bar on Monte Carlo had originally been planned to open on New Year’s Eve in 2010.

Kleindienst says the islands should encompass a mini replica of the best part of each country, so you can get a choice slice of Paris, Italy or anywhere else. (When I tell him that one of my favorite island vacations was to Jersey in the Channel Islands—thanks in no small part to the beautiful cows—he apologizes and says he can’t get cows for me.)

That comes as something of a surprise because Kleindienst is already on his way to bringing to life such fantastical ideas as a “raining” street at the Monaco hotel. For years, he’s been talking about the World as a place you can taste your favorite vacation spots from climates all over the globe, with features such as “snow,” even amid the Arabian desert heat. (He created a snowman as a publicity stunt in 2018.) 

Kleindienst says his first hotel, a 6 kilometer (3.7 mile), 30-minute boat ride from the coast, has been in a soft opening phase since December. The adults-only Monaco hotel has 198 rooms, with occupancy running to a high of 70% to 80% on weekends, he says. That’s lower than Dubai’s average, but he says the figure will rise when global travel agents start fully pushing sales. Rooms can be booked well into November on weeknights for 461 dirhams ($125) a night, or 1,121 dirhams on weekends, according to online listings.

At first, most of Kleindienst’s guests were from Saudi Arabia. Now, most are staycationers who are Emirati or UAE residents. And, as many hoteliers in the UAE have seen, there’s been an increase in guests and investors from Russia.

A Tel Aviv Hotel Mines the Soho House Playbook

One of the most anticipated hotels coming to Israel in this year is the George, a hotel and members club being developed by a subsidiary of Elco Ltd., a holding company listed in Tel Aviv. The property will combine what you might find at a typical five-star hotel—restaurants, a gym, yoga and spa—with co-working spaces and meeting rooms, extended-stay rooms, and a relaxed nightlife lounge.

When I first heard about its proposed location—more than 2 kilometers from the beach, in a bit of a forgotten neighborhood called HaRakevet—I was skeptical.

In the past week, I visited the area and realized why it makes sense: It’s right next to the largest station for the city’s new light rail that connects to the suburbs, as well as Jaffa and the beaches. Several skyscrapers have already been built in the neighborhood, and more are well on their way to completion. Local tenants include law firms and tech companies.

But a private club? In Tel Aviv, a place where billionaires mix with the hoi polloi?

Eyal de Leeuw, vice president of brand and community at the Elco Hospitality, admits that joining clubs isn’t in Israelis’ DNA. “We’re not a hierarchical society,” he says. Still, he says, it can be done in a country with socialist roots. De Leeuw brings experience from Soho House Ltd., the international club chain that opened an Israel outpost two years ago.

Interiors were designed by Lázaro Rosa-Violán, a noted Barcelona-based interior designer. He worked off of art from Israeli artist Elazar Halivny to create the tiling at the bottom of the main outdoor pool. Israeli chef Barak Aharoni will open a restaurant called Pardes (orchard, in Hebrew), serving Mediterranean food.

The George could exist on its own, financially speaking, de Leeuw says. The members club can add not only revenue; the founders believe it will attract hotel guests who want to feel like they’re living like locals.

“We believe that people travel today to consume ‘localism,’” he says. “We want to create a place where locals and temporary locals will hang together. And that’s where the magic happens.” Room rates start at 800 shekels ($211), with suites at 2,500 shekels. Members can access all areas of the hotel except for the rooms.

The building will eventually have 10 floors of apartments, too, whose owners could have access to the George’s facilities. 

Attaining membership will require nomination by two members. The introductory rate will be 650 shekels per month, which after some time—exactly when hasn’t been determined—will go up to 1,200 per month. The latter is significantly more than the Soho House Tel Aviv’s cost of 667 shekels per month for members over 27 years old (not including the one-time fee of 1,900 shekels), which brings access to only the Tel Aviv Soho House location—or 167 shekels a month for those under 27. De Leeuw says that the price reflects the variety of culinary, health and cultural offerings, as well as the facilities offered. 

The target opening date is by the end of this year, with a soft opening in October. (Though I always assure hoteliers that delays are the norm in hotel openings.) The hotel is already taking bookings for January.

More Middle East Luxury News

  • Qatar acquires the World Padel Tour after a months-long power struggle.
  • Will Dubai International Airport hit a record 90 million visitors this year? The first half brought 41.6 million passengers, beating 2019 numbers.
  • The fine-dining restaurant, Celebrities by Mauro Colagreco, has closed. 
  • The best things to see and do in the revamped AlUla, Saudi Arabia.
  • Are Dubai’s midnight beaches something we’re going to see in non-Gulf cities because of climate change? Our pal Vivian Nereim spent the night on the beach in Umm Suqeim to see what it’s like.
  • Riyadh Air’s expansion will be “super aggressive.”
  • A W hotel is coming to Ras Al Khaimah’s Marjan Island, the future home of the Wynn.

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