In Conversation with Alain Kharrat from Amar Luxury Desert Lodge

To label Alain as simply a General Manager is to underplay his importance. He’s Amar’s guiding guru, the man who dreamt up its concept and who has been a driving force in getting the project off the ground – even as it shifted beneath him. ‘I started handling Magic Camps (a UAE luxury mobile private desert camp run by the same group) in 2020. It’s a private luxury camp but it’s a different concept from Amar,’ he tells me. ‘All the facilities are there: a canvas tent but without an attached bathroom, so it’s a little more hardcore than what we have here.’ ‘Here’ is one of Amar’s tents, from which Alain is talking to me and somewhere that does not look hardcore.

‘So from my time at Magic Camps, I had this idea to do something exceptional, unique, high-end and total luxury,’ he says with a slight smile on his face. Prior to his time in the UAE, Alain had worked extensively across the eco-tourism industry. He’d run tours in Lebanon that operated adventure trips into Syria and Jordan, had worked for Nouvelle Frontière and had supported projects and communities across the region. ‘My training was in this sort of tourism and, at Magic Camp, I began to discuss the idea of doing a high-end fixed camp which had that glamping spirit – but at a premium level.’

Given the market dynamics of the UAE, high-end principles were a must. ‘We had to find a supplier who could supply the right sort of tents.’ Alain did some digging and eventually alighted upon a company which constructed eco-friendly, top-end tents. The Amar vision was taking shape, but challenges remained. ‘Finding a location was a huge issue. It’s tough to find somewhere in the desert with nothing around but, eventually, we found our site: we’re in between Dubai and Abu Dhabi with high dunes all around and a solar power system (developed by Alain at Magic Camp) to light us.’

Concept sorted, site sourced, power supply identified. Now back to those moving parts. The problem with high, rolling sand dunes is that they don’t afford much flat space. ‘Our very first challenge was to level a large swathe of land to support all the tents, restaurant tent and sunset setup,’ Alain says, ‘and we had to think how the power supply that we’d developed would work here.’ The Amar team worked alongside a German consultant to pinpoint exactly how to power their new, levelled, site, all with the idea in the back of their mind that they never wanted a huge number of solar panels. What this meant in practical terms was that Amar’s sleeping tents would never exceed a small number: 10, in fact.

And it’s those tents that form the centrepiece of Alain’s creation. They each sit on a 75 square metre, 3-piece platform that took 3 days, per tent, to lay down. Remember, because of the high desert winds and nature of the environment, these platforms were being laid on shifting sands, by hand, so if there’s one thing they had to be, it was sturdy. Each of the 10-bedroom tents has been customised by Alain and his design team and a quick flick through the Amar website – and a peek over his shoulder on Zoom – reveals a 21^st century Bedouin paradise. Vast slabs of natural light illuminate a bedroom complete with teak 4-poster, sleek leather and granite textures, and a self-contained bathroom that’s all brushed aluminium and natural products. Outside, a stretched canvas is pulled across a decking area with a sofa, sun-downer spot and torch lanterns.

The tents are connected by a criss-crossing walkway across the sand and, all around them, 50-foot dunes give the impression of a private village in the desert. If the bedroom tents were tricky enough to lay down, the restaurant is a different ball game. ‘It’s 375 square metres, sits on a 32-piece platform, with al fresco eating and drinking areas and a secluded sunset viewing area.’ Basically, imagine the fanciest wedding tent you’ve seen, and you’re probably not even close to the scale of Dar Al Amar, as Alain chose to name it.

The restaurant is one of Amar’s key calling cards, a genuinely stunning feat in the face of the elements and logistical challenges of being where they are. In fact, those elements almost derailed the project when the second largest storm in half a century forced a halt in construction, damaged storage tents and sent the team back to the drawing board. ‘It was a pain,’ Alain says, with a hint of understatement. But derail the project it did not. When they opened their doors at the end of last year, the guests have come. ‘The camp’s been fully booked 5 times in our first few months – we’ve been going strong.’

Reports, by all accounts, have been overwhelmingly positive. ‘Our offering is very high-end. Guests arrive, set up shop in their tent and then we take them to enjoy the sunset.’ During sunset drinks, they can try their hand at one of the region’s most ancient past times, and one of its modern ones. ‘Guests can enjoy archery in the desert or, if they want something a little more high octane, they can sandboard down our mighty dunes.’ After sunset – and maybe a shower based on sand-boarding ability – it’s time for dinner at Dar Al Amar accompanied by traditional music, followed by a bonfire pre-bed.