With 10,000 bedrooms and 70 restaurants, plus five floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf.
This will be a city within a city, hosting 70 restaurants, food courts, a bus station, shopping mall, conference center and a lavish ballroom. All will be set within a cluster of 12 towers standing atop a 10-story podium and centered around a massive dome.
Located in the Manafia district, just over a mile south of the Grand Mosque, the complex is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance and designed by the Dar Al-Handasah group, a 7,000-strong global construction conglomerate that turns its hand to everything from designing cities in Kazakhstan to airports in Dubai.
The city receives around 2 million pilgrims for the annual Hajj, but during the rest of the year more than 20 million visit the city, which has become a popular place for weddings and conferences, bringing in annual tourism revenue of around £6bn.
Currently, Las Vegas is home to the world’s largest hotel in terms of the number of guest rooms.Reuters