DOHA'S KATARA TOWER: 10 Years, 37 Floors, Infinite Luxury | WELT Documentary

The Qatara Towers, the new defining landmark for Doha, the capital of the Emirate of Qatar on the Arabian Gulf. It took 10 years to plan and build these two towers, which also serve as a symbol. That represents the swords of the national seal of Qatar. Two luxury hotels comprising 37 floors each are scheduled to open here in just under 12 weeks. Almost 500 suites and hotel rooms, plus 18 restaurants, bars and cafes. Money is no object. The goal is to outdo all existing mega-hotels in the Gulf. With the largest chandelier in the world, 57 meters long, and the world's only multimedia kaleidoscope inside the hotel lobby. There are just 80 days before the opening. An almost impossible task for the German manager of both hotels, Christian Hirt. The unusual thing about this project is that we have a hard deadline. And there's no escaping it. We have to be ready. After 10 years of construction, everyone is now feeling the pressure. Work is going on in every direction you look. It's only the main kitchen that's not firing on all cylinders. We don't have any gas yet. We're currently using a small electric hotplate as our big gas cooker. There's construction going on everywhere you look. 500 rooms need to undergo approval, and there's no room for any mistakes. We really do go into the smallest detail and only approve the rooms when everything is absolutely perfect. The material that we use is really, really the best material that you can find in the market. It is a very sustainable building, and it's like saving 40% more energy than any other building that is sustained. So here we have also the five-star GSAS certification for design, and we will get also the five-star certification for the construction. While the towers have been handed over to the hotel operators, they're far from finished. Every morning, this is a challenge for Christian Hilt and his management team. All right, I hope you had a good sleep. 80 days to go. It's getting hot. We're in a good position, but we have an incredible number of deliveries that still need to come in and enter the country. It's not just us, there are many others too. Our uniforms aren't here yet, and we can't open the hotels without our uniforms. But the missing uniforms are not the only problem. The kitchens have already been installed in the 18 restaurants of the two hotels. But there's still no sign of top-class gastronomy here. The gas connection needs to be installed, and with it, the possibility of actually cooking food and training staff. A real challenge. We would start by giving everything a deep clean. That will take a few days. Kitchen and restaurants still require functional testing to make sure that everything works. To make sure that the lighting works. All of the scenarios. And then we start putting the equipment in and start training the staff, of course. 1130 people will work inside these two luxury hotels. But at the moment, only parts of the entire structure have been handed over by the contractor to the hotel management. Here, in the entrance hall of the six-star hotel, guests are to be greeted by a spectacular attraction. Here behind me you can see the kaleidoscope. We have one of the largest kaleidoscopes in the world here in the lobby at Raffles. It's 40 meters tall. And we have a very large LED high-performance wall, 40 meters above the ground. And all around the kaleidoscope, there are mirrors. And what they project is then basically refracted in the mirrors, like in a kaleidoscope. The logistical effort is gigantic. Dirk Haltenhof and his team ordered hundreds of thousands of items just for furnishing all the kitchens and restaurants. Just because they placed all the orders over a year ago doesn't mean that they have received everything. Some items will only arrive later, so we'll just have to get to work with what's already here. There are bottlenecks everywhere, so material supplies are scarce all around the world. And that's why they're difficult to get a hold of at the moment. New deliveries arrive by the pallet for the kitchens and restaurants every single day. Since the 330 service employees can't do their training inside the restaurants yet, they've been instructed to check the deliveries. I saw the black thing here, but it was not that much. Like here. Piece by piece, each item must be checked for its six-star quality, even the cloth napkins. We have four or five. There's one five. So, everything's ready. Since seven this morning, we've really had a lot of people in here. Housekeeping has really done a top job here in the last five hours. The balcony has been a lot of work, of course. The florists were already here at 5 a.m. this morning and had everything ready by 7 a.m. And we put in the amenities an hour ago, so that they're nice and fresh before the guest arrives. Great. It's quite windy today. Yeah. The plants already make a difference. The carpet fits in really well here, I think. Great. Nice view of the stadium. Yeah, we can now check one of the biggest suites before our first arrival. And this is a very special moment. This is the moment we have been working towards for the last 18 months. And yeah, this is a very special moment for us. Ten years of construction time for a hotel project of superlatives. A six-star and a five-star luxury hotel under one roof. From now on, 1130 people from 73 nations will look after the well-being of well-heeled guests from all over the world. And give them an authentic Arabian Nights experience here in Qatar.