Inside Dorchester Collections new luxury Lana hotel in Dubai

The United Arab Emirate of Dubai is forever making headlines for its hyperbolic endeavors: the world’s tallest skyscraper, the first indoor ski slope in the Middle East, the region’s largest mall.In this desert city — one of the fastest-growing in the world, where 88% of the population is foreign-born — the conventional wisdom has long held that the more gilded, the more encrusted, the more bedazzled, the more luxurious.

But all that is about to change with the opening of the Dorchester’s Lana hotel.In 2012, Mahdi Amjad had a modern vision for his adopted country.(He was born in Iraq.) As Dubai matured into an international hub of business and leisure, the developer believed that so, too, would the tastes of its residents.

After the global financial crisis had passed, the government dredged a canal from Dubai Creek east, to the downtown location of a planned (and scrapped) military base.The extension enabled the development of a new neighborhood, the Marasi Bay Marina in Business Bay, anchored by a lagoon directly across from Burj Khalifa (the aforementioned world’s tallest skyscraper) and the “cultural” hub known as the Dubai Mall (which proclaimed itself the world’s most visited place in 2023).

Cranes went up — and with them, Amjad’s first step toward building an upscale hotel that would defy the bling that dominates every other retreat in town, from the Palm Jumeirah to the Burj Al Arab.Amjad scoured the planet for a partner who shared his vision, eventually joining forces with London’s eminently elegant Dorchester Collection hotel group.“I come from a residential background, so I’m always thinking about the living spaces first, even in a hotel,” says Amjad, who’s the founder and executive chairman of the UAE development company Omniyat.

“It doesn’t matter how exceptional a building you create.If you don’t have an exceptional level of service, you don’t have an exceptional living experience.” And boy did the Dorchest...