The most luxurious hotel in the world is, by fame and acclaim, the Burj Al Arab in Dubai: a 321-metre sail-shaped building on an artificial island, 202 duplex suites, interiors clad in roughly 1,790 square metres of 24-carat gold leaf, and a night in the Royal Suite that costs, as a guideline, $25,000. Other serious contenders include the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and the great signature suites of Las Vegas and the Maldives.
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Why the Burj Al Arab is considered the most luxurious
Opened in 1999 on the Jumeirah waterfront, the Burj Al Arab isn’t a hotel with a few suites: it’s a hotel made entirely of suites. All 202 accommodations are duplexes, spread across two levels, with floor areas starting at around 170 square metres, two or three times the size of a normal suite in a European five-star hotel.
The figures behind the legend are verifiable: the internal atrium is around 180 metres tall, one of the highest in the world, the gold surfaces are clad in roughly 1,790 square metres of 24-carat gold leaf in total, the complimentary fleet includes chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces, and there’s a helipad on the twenty-eighth floor, used over the years for memorable stunts such as the exhibition tennis match between Agassi and Federer in 2005. Every floor has its own dedicated reception, and the staff-to-guest ratio is among the highest in the industry: roughly six staff per suite.
Many of these elements, stripped of the excess, are an extreme version of the requirements for 5-star and 5-star luxury hotels that define the high end even in Italy: round-the-clock service, generous floor areas, premium materials.
The myth of seven stars
The Burj Al Arab is often called “the only seven-star hotel in the world”. This is a journalistic description, not an official classification: it came from a story by a British journalist visiting before the opening, and the hotel itself has never formally claimed it. No national or international classification system provides for more than five stars, as we explain in the guide on how many stars a hotel can have.
The interesting lesson for anyone working in hospitality is a different one: “seven stars” was born from perception, not from a table of requirements. When materials, service and the coherence of a project exceed expectations, it’s the market that invents a new category.
How much it costs to stay at the Burj Al Arab
Prices vary considerably with the season, but the orders of magnitude are these: an entry-level suite starts, as a guideline, from €1,500 to €2,500 a night, while the Royal Suite, 780 square metres across two floors with a private cinema, a dedicated lift and a team of dedicated butlers, is offered at around $25,000 a night, with higher peaks during busy periods such as New Year.
For a comparison with the ordinary market, our analysis of how much a night in a hotel costs in Italy is useful: one night in the Burj Al Arab’s Royal Suite costs roughly as much as around 200 nights in a good Italian four-star hotel.
The other contenders for the title
The Burj Al Arab has the fame, but it isn’t alone at the top of the world’s luxury pyramid.
The Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi is considered the most expensive hotel ever built, with an estimated investment of around 3 billion dollars: golden domes, 114 hectares of gardens and, for years, a gold bar vending machine placed in the lobby. In Dubai, Atlantis The Royal opened in 2023 with a private Beyoncé concert and has staked everything on dramatic architecture and suites with suspended infinity pools. In the Maldives, inside Conrad Rangali Island, The Muraka brought the first hotel residence with an underwater bedroom in 2018, around 5 metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean.
On a different plane sit the great European palace hotels, the Ritz Paris, Claridge’s in London, the Hôtel de Crillon, where luxury isn’t measured in size records but in history, craftsmanship and service. These are properties where refurbishing a single suite can take longer than building an entire resort, because every piece of stucco, every panel and every fabric passes through restoration work and heritage oversight.
Many of these properties also play on the ground of strangeness and wonder: we cover that in the ranking of the strangest hotels in the world.
The most expensive suites in the world
If you look at the single priciest night, the ranking changes and Dubai is no longer on top. Here are the verified figures, to be read as indicative rates subject to change.
| Suite | Hotel and location | Indicative price per night |
|---|---|---|
| Lover’s Deep | Private submarine, Saint Lucia, Caribbean | around $150,000 |
| Empathy Suite | Palms Casino Resort, Las Vegas | around $100,000 |
| Royal Penthouse Suite | Hotel President Wilson, Geneva | around CHF 80,000 |
| The Muraka | Conrad Maldives Rangali Island | around $50,000 |
| Royal Suite | Burj Al Arab, Dubai | around $25,000 |
The Empathy Suite deserves a mention: 836 square metres across two floors, designed by artist Damien Hirst, with original works on the walls, formaldehyde-preserved sharks included, a private 13-seat bar and a 24-hour butler. Geneva’s Royal Penthouse Suite occupies the hotel’s entire top floor, has 12 rooms and bulletproof glass: it’s the regular choice of heads of state visiting the United Nations.
These are figures far removed from the ordinary market, but the design principles behind a great suite, separate zones for sleeping and receiving guests, a dramatic bathroom, continuous materials, apply at every scale: you’ll find them in the guide on how to furnish a hotel suite.
What actually makes an interior luxurious
Strip away the gold and the records, and what technically sets a luxury interior apart from a merely expensive one? Looking at the projects mentioned, clear constants emerge.
The materials are genuine, and it shows: real marble, prized wood species, natural fabrics with substantial weight. Luxury doesn’t imitate. At the Burj Al Arab as at the Empathy Suite, there’s no catalogue furniture, every headboard, every panel, every walk-in wardrobe is designed for that specific space and that specific view, with installation tolerances measured in millimetres, because even someone who couldn’t explain what they’re looking at will notice a three-millimetre gap at the wall. Consistency matters too: handles, mouldings, light points and even air vents follow the same language, and it’s this, far more than the price of individual pieces, that gives the sense of being somewhere designed with intent. What’s left is the comfort that goes unseen, carefully engineered acoustics, total blackout, silent air conditioning. The guest doesn’t notice it, they feel it.
This is also our everyday experience as a contract partner: in the guide on how to furnish a luxury hotel we describe how exceptional materials and furniture designed around the space, made through a selected supply chain of Italian workshops with a single point of contact from design to handover, produce that sense of uniqueness no catalogue can give. Gold leaf isn’t required: what’s required is that every element is designed for that room.
And what about Italy?
Italy doesn’t have an official “most luxurious hotel”, but it’s one of the densest markets for high-end hôtellerie in the world: the great historic hotels of Venice and Rome, the villas of Lake Como, the resorts of the Amalfi Coast and Taormina appear consistently in international rankings of the world’s best hotels, with top suite rates exceeding €20,000 a night in high season.
The difference from Dubai is one of language: Italian luxury rarely chases size records, it stakes everything on historic buildings, craftsmanship, proportion. It’s a luxury of detail rather than scale, and that’s why Italian-made contract furniture is sought after even by the most ambitious international projects.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a night at the Burj Al Arab cost?
A basic suite starts, as a guideline, from €1,500 to €2,500 a night depending on the season. The Royal Suite, 780 square metres across two floors with dedicated butlers, costs around $25,000 a night, with higher rates during peak periods.
What’s the most expensive suite in the world?
Among bookable accommodations, the title is contested between the Lover’s Deep submarine in the Caribbean, offered at around $150,000 a night, and the Empathy Suite at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, designed by Damien Hirst, which costs around $100,000 a night. In Europe, the priciest is the Royal Penthouse Suite at the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva, around CHF 80,000.
What’s the most luxurious hotel in Italy?
There’s no official title: Italian classification stops at 5-star luxury. The great hotels of Venice, Rome, Lake Como and the Amalfi Coast, though, appear every year at the top of international rankings, with suites exceeding €20,000 a night in high season.
Do 7-star hotels really exist?
No. No official classification system, in Italy or abroad, provides for more than five stars. The “7 stars” label attached to the Burj Al Arab came from a press article before its opening and doesn’t correspond to any certification.
