Crystal Lagoons, which is building the world’s largest man-made lagoon at Dubai’s planned Mohammed Bin Rashid City, is hoping to expand its Middle East portfolio with the company confirming exploring projects throughout the Gulf.
The multinational, which was founded and headquartered in Chile, has constructed the first phase of the 40ha lagoon at Mohammed Bin Rashid City – completing it in time for Cityscape Global.
When completed, it will eclipse another one of its projects, the 12ha lagoon at Egyptian resort Sharm El Sheikh.
The 40ha lagoon, which is pitched as a manmade version of the waters of the Caribbean or The Maldives, will feature beaches or swimming and be used for water sports and other water-based leisure activities.
“It’s very exciting, because we’ve been in the region but having a project of 40ha, which is four times the largest of the current (biggest) one in Sharm El Sheikh, it’s hard to get people’s minds around how big 40ha is,” Crystal Lagoons CEO Kevin P Morgan told Arabian Business at Cityscape.
“It’s going to really set an international standard for Crystal Lagoons, so it’s very, very exciting.”
Among its portfolio, which spans 250 projects in 50 countries, Crystal Lagoons has five high-profile Middle East projects. It has finished two lagoons at Sharm El Sheikh, including the 12ha project, a 4ha Dead Sea lagoon in Jordan and two projects in development – a 4ha lagoon at the new Barka Resort in Oman and another in the UAE.
However, Morgan said it was focused on further projects in the UAE and Saudi, which “is very much a market that we’re quite interested in, particularly Jeddah and the capital of Riyadh”.