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The First Hotel in the Emirates: “The BOAC

Rest House” at Sharjah Airfield

Nicholas Stanley-Price

ABSTRACT
The Rest House established at Sharjah Airfield in 1932 came to function as a public
hotel, the first in the Trucial States. Built by Imperial Airways to accommodate
its passengers overnight on an all-inclusive basis, it eventually started to charge
others who used its facilities. Among these were Bahrain-based British diplomats
on their duty tours of the Trucial Coast and, increasingly in the post-WWII period,
businessmen and entrepreneurs who visited Sharjah and Dubai. The evidence
of official British records has clarified questions about extensions made to the
building, modifying an earlier analysis while confirming that there was usually
spare capacity at the Rest House. The airlines derived a small income from what
they charged users other than their passengers. A complaint about the Rest House’s
high prices made in 1940 by the Political Agent visiting from Bahrain ignored the
difficult conditions created by worldwide and local wars. It did lead, however, to
a concession for a few years whereby diplomats paid reduced rates. The airfield
superintendents employed by Imperial and, from 1940, by BOAC had usually
been trained in customer service. Thanks to them, standards were maintained
at the Rest House even during WWII. On BOAC’s withdrawal in 1947-48, a
new company, International Aeradio Limited, took over the Sharjah airfield as an
important station for air traffic control in the Gulf. It remained the only hotel in
the Trucial States until the 1960s.

Many visitors to the Trucial States in the 1950s and 1960s referred to the BOAC Rest
House (or, ‘the Fort’) at Sharjah airfield as the only accommodation available in the
vicinity of Sharjah/Dubai. It had originally been built in 1932-33 to provide passenger
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accommodation during the overnight stopovers of Imperial Airways flights. In 1947
Imperial’s successor, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), announced
that it no longer needed to stopover at Sharjah – aeroplanes by then had greater
ranges. The last BOAC flying-boat left Dubai/Sharjah on 10 January 1947. Other
than in emergencies, the airline no longer needed the Sharjah facilities. Nor did other
airlines which served Sharjah. The original purpose of the Rest House was therefore
obsolete.

After BOAC had made its announcement, at short notice, the British government felt
it essential to retain Sharjah’s signals facilities for air traffic control in the Gulf region.
A new British company, International Aeradio Limited (IAL) had been created by

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