About 25 years before Burj Al Arab opened and gave Dubai its first global landmark, there was one hotel that stood as a proud symbol of the city's hospitality. The InterContinental Dubai was inaugurated on March 15, 1975, by Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, who at the time was Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Constructed at a cost of Dh70 million on 1.2 hectares of waterfront road, the hotel featured 307 guest rooms all fully air-conditioned. It was designed by American architect Neal Prince, who oversaw the opening of as many as 154 International InterContinental hotels between 1961 and 1985.
The property, which was renamed the Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek in 2006, set the benchmark for luxury in the region, and hosted everyone from royalty to presidents and celebrities, including Queen Elizabeth II, who stayed at the hotel during her state visit in 1979.
With its location close to Dubai International Airport, it also became popular for use by airlines and their crew. British Airways was the hotel's first client in 1976.
Besides being the first five-star hotel, it was also the first to use computerised check-in and check-out procedures in 1985 when IBM Computers won the contract to install the first computers for the front office team. In the 1990s, during its 20th anniversary year, the hotel launched the city’s first 24-hour health club and launched Dubai's first Friday brunch in 1998.
When it opened, the hotel had three outlets, including Al Nakuda, a coffee shop that sold coffee or tea for Dh5. Now, there are 12 food and drink outlets, with some restaurants about 40 years old, including Persian eatery Shabestan and The Pub.
An extension called the Plaza Building was inaugurated in 1980, which hosted some of Dubai’s earliest meeting and conference spaces, from car launches to fashion shows and theatre productions. The plaza also created additional space for retail, making the hotel the first truly mixed-use development of its time.
Other high-profile guests who stayed there include former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev, former Polish president Aleksander Kwasnieswki and former prime minister of Malaysia, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Celebrity guests include singer Bryan Adams, US basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai, cricketer and former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and British actress Liz Hurley, who starred in a play staged at the hotel.
