Video, pics: Inside Expo 2020 Dubai’s only onsite hotel

Expo 2020 Dubai, which opens its doors on October 1, is expecting to see 25 million visits during its six-month run.

As the only hotel located within the site, Rove Expo 2020 is also gearing up to hit the ground running when it opens to the public on October 1.

Located adjacent to Al Wasl Plaza, it features 312 king- and twin-rooms as well as 19 suites – making it the only Rove hotel with suites.

All the suites have already been fully booked for the entire expo period, the hotel confirmed.

The hotel’s F&B outlets include The Daily, a grab&go Rove Café and The Bar. It also has a rooftop swimming pool and sundeck overlooking the Al Wasl Plaza, as well as a 24-hour gym, foosball tables, an outdoor garden space for events and prayer rooms.

Easily accessible from the Expo Metro station, Rove Expo 2020 also features business networking spaces in the lobby as well as sound-proof pods to facilitate virtual meetings.

“We expect this hotel to be full from day one, throughout the event,” said Paul Bridger, chief operating officer at Rove Hotels.

“We’ve spent a lot time training [the team] and we’ve also brought a number of people from our existing Rove hotels that have been with us for some time.”

The hotel has also prepared extensively to ensure the safety of its guests due to the impact of the pandemic.

“So firstly, all of our team will be vaccinated when we open. Secondly, we have social distancing, we have mandatory wearing of masks, we have sanitising stations. So, we’ll follow best practices for that. I think in general Dubai has some of the strongest practices and mandatory rules. So international visitors will see that from the minute they arrive at the airport, right through to coming to Rove and also the Expo event, which I think will be very well managed. A lot of time and planning has gone into this aspect,” explained Bridger.

He also acknowledges that the question he gets asked the most relates to the post-Expo future of the hotel.

“You don’t build a hotel for six months. The investment horizon for a hotel is 25 years plus. And we obviously looked at this when we looked at the hotel and ran our numbers. Yes, we do expect the hotel business to drop after the event, because there’s going to be a lot of changes to the environment, there’s going to be a lot of repositioning of real estate into residential and into commercial. But we’re bullish still, because we’re the only hotel in this site. Firstly, you’ve got the Dubai Exhibition Center, and you’ve got a lot of activity happening not very far away. You’ve also got Dubai World Central, which will come online sooner or later, you’ve got Dubai South, Emaar South, so this whole area has a lot happening. And no doubt the UAE is going to make a big attraction of the Expo site,” he states.