Recently, Dubai found place on another “most expensive list”, but this time, the list does not promote the city as a beautiful, luxury and prestigious, Middle East’s business hub etc. It rather shows how sometimes money and ambition can do more harm than good – The World Islands were listed among the priciest travel fails.
Dubai is famous for being home to the world’s tallest building, the most luxurious hotel in the world, the biggest shopping mall, and its wondrous man-made islands. The Palm, an artificial island shaped like a palm tree, is extremely popular among billionaires and celebrities – Victoria and David Beckham and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan are just some of the many, who bought real estates here. Another huge project, which was significantly endorsed by movie stars like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Hilary Swank, is the World Islands. But unlike almost everything else in the rich emirate, the $14-billion World Islands, actually didn’t fare very well.
The project was started in 2003 and the plan included the construction of 300 islands, which would be sold to ultra-wealthy buyers. But the financial crisis of 2008 nearly annihilated Dubai’s plans – the construction work was cancelled, with many of the islands left unfinished. As a result, three years after sales launch, only 45% of the islets were sold (although not developed or even built), according to the project’s developer Nakheel. Reports in 2011 claimed that some of the islands started to sink due to erosion, but this was just one of the many unfortunate circumstances. For instance, the buyer of the “Ireland” island, Irish investor John O’Dolan, committed suicide in 2009 after his company fell into financial difficulty.
Today, only two of the islands are fully developed and in February this year, JK Properties said that the construction of the “Heart of Europe” is “well underway”. Probably the project’s not-so-successful history is the reason why Western journalists decided to name it one of the world’s most expensive tourist attraction failures. In fact, Dubai’s World Islands isn’t the worst example of how fabulous plans can sometimes turn into disastrous reality. Revel Casino in Atlantic City is now closing doors after only 2 years of operating. Declaring bankruptcy twice, the $2.4 billion casino is apparently out of luck and the Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas isn’t doing better – 26 floors of the 47-floor unfinished hotel are now being demolished for scrap metal.
The list of extremely expensive failures also includes the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea, which was designed to be the world’s tallest hotel. This however, was nearly 30 ago, and although an Egyptian firm tried to restart the construction work in 2008, the hotel is still unfinished. But we can’t blame communists for everything – Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport was supposed to open in 2010 to replace the Belin Tegel and Schonefeld airports. Officials say it will be ready in 2015, but insiders claim the project couldn’t be finished until 2019. Other projects and properties, which required massive investment without bringing back profit, are San Alfonso del Mar Swimming Pool, called the Crystal Lagoon in Chile, The New South china Mall, Guangdong Province of China, the Mirny Diamond Mine in Russia, and the Wonderland Amusement Park in Beijing. And the grandest fails of all time is probably Titanic and its tragic maiden voyage which ended in the early morning of April 15, 1912. The $400 million ship (in today’s money) sank and more than 1500 people died in the freezing ocean.
