Luxury hotel defends world’s most expensive Christmas tree
The super- luxury Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi has defended putting up the world’s most expensive Christmas tree in its foyer but says it has no regrets because it didn’t cost the hotel any money.
The 13-metre artificial fir has been decorated with millions of dollars worth of gold and gemstones, including a diamond necklace and assorted emeralds, pearls and sapphires, supplied by a jeweller with an outlet in the hotel.
Commentators on news websites and the social media hub Twitter have called the display ostentatious and in bad taste.
“For some reason, someone had decided to publish incorrectly that we spent $11 million, and people around the world thought that maybe that money could be spent in a better way,” Janet Abrahams, the hotel’s executive director of sales and marketing told The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi.
“Those are false reports, and we obviously didn’t spend that.”
Hazem Harfoush, the assistant director of marketing, said the idea behind the decoration of the tree was to promote Emirates Palace and Abu Dhabi as a destination.
Reports that the hotel regretted putting up the tree were inaccurate, a hotel spokesperson said.
In fact the hotel “expressed regret about the attempts of some to attribute some connotations and meanings to this tradition†that were not what they intended, according to local Arabic media.
Ian Jarrett
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