Dubai’s Nakheel to launch round ‘The World’ cruises

Nakheel, the indebted Dubai developer, plans to launch cruises around its ‘World’ and Palm Jumeirah islands as it moves to bolster its tourism offerings amid a real estate slowdown. The government-owned company will offer tourists day and dinner cruises from the Palm around its troubled ‘The World’ project, in a bid to reposition the island as a tourism destination, Arabian Business understands.    Nakheel, which is restructuring some AED59bn ($16.1bn) of liabilities, has hinted it plans to ramp up its tourism interests in an attempt to offset tumbling revenues from its real estate sales. The company said Wednesday it plans to create 500 artificial reefs around Dubai in an effort to regenerate marine life around the emirate’s coastline, and aid the local fishing industry. The reefs will be positioned around Nakheel’s existing manmade islands, Ali Lootah, chairman of Nakheel, told reporters. “It will help the local economy from having a good tourist industry in Dubai and environmentally I think we did our best to protect the environment,” he said. A United Nations report released last month said the GCC’s offshore islands and policy of overfishing had damaged the local marine ecosystem.   Development of the reefs will not be a “big financial burden” said Lootah, without specifying the cost. “We have the materials, we have the stone, we have the barges – we have most of this already. The materials are with us so it’s not going to cost us very much,” he said. Nakheel was one of the biggest casualties of Dubai’s property crash after overstretching itself with ambitious projects such as the offshore World island development. The firm in September wrote down AED78.6bn ($21.4bn) from the value of its real estate during the Dubai debt crisis. The World island development epitomised Dubai’s boom-time ambition but ran aground in the wake of the global financial crisis. Construction on the offshore project ground to a virtual standstill in the wake of the downturn, which saw house prices in the emirate decline by more than 60 percent from their peak. Richard Paul, head of residential valuations at Dubai-based real estate consultancy Cluttons, said Nakheel’s efforts to source new revenue through tourism projects reflected a practical approach. “They are categorically a property developer - that is the heart of its business - but with supply at levels that are not feasible for it to continue to developing new projects, and with developments being handed over owners associations they will be losing income on that side,” he said. “So it does make sense for them for the next few years to concentrate on new revenue streams.” A spokesperson for Nakheel declined to comment on the developer’s cruise plans