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The first hotel in the Emirates: the “BOAC Rest House” at Sharjah airfield

British Political Agent, the Sheba in the new town and the Carlton (still operating
today) near the beach in the al-Khan area. 9

This picture of an abrupt transition in 1947 from a BOAC overnight rest house
for passengers to a small hotel managed by IAL for businessmen coming to Sharjah
and Dubai is misleading. In reality BOAC, while carrying its own passengers on an
all-inclusive cost basis, had for many years been charging other visitors to stay or
eat there. Diplomats, businessmen and others paid to use it. BOAC, and to a lesser
extent its predecessor Imperial Airways, had been enjoying an income from them in
addition to the landing fees and postal service charges that they levied. The income
from paying guests was very low relative to the costs of maintaining this facility for
their airline passengers; but it reveals that the functioning of a ‘hotel’ in Sharjah had
its origins in the 1930s.

The Sharjah Rest House: capacity and room occupancy rates
Imperial Airways had the Rest House constructed in response to the need for an
overnight stop for its airliners on the western Gulf air-route to India. For nine months,
while the building was under construction, overnight passengers used a tented camp.

One wing of the foursquare defensive fort was allocated to guest rooms. It appears
to have had six single rooms and three double-rooms, with a capacity of twelve
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persons. (Fig. 1). A traveller in 1935 reported “about twelve bedrooms”. Few
women passengers are recorded in the 1930s and even fewer couples. In the rare
event that the need arose, men may occasionally have had to share a double-room (for
instance, when two flights coincided at Sharjah for the night, either as scheduled or
when weather conditions required it.) Passenger numbers were low on most Imperial
Airways flights (see below); but the building of five additional rooms as an upper
storey to the right of the entrance seemed to betray a shortage of accommodation. It
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is now clear that these rooms were in fact built in 1935 for the Indian members of the
Meteorological Service. They consisted of three rooms for Observers, and two to be
used an office and store-room (Fig. 2). Since they lacked fireplaces, separate cooking
facilities (one for Hindus, one for Muslims) were proposed. 13

The extension to the Rest House that doubled its size in 1939 I previously attributed
to the need for more staff accommodation and for concentrating technical facilities
in a single place. This statement remains true but it was actually under the rubric
of ‘Additional accommodation for the Rest House’ that the extension was proposed
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in 1936 and completed in 1939. The new flying-boat service to Dubai was due
to launch soon: lodging for a further twelve passengers would probably be needed,
according to the Air Ministry. Its plan of 1936 shows the proposed addition of a
second courtyard of equal size. As deduced previously, the eastern defensive corner-
tower from the original fort was to be demolished and re-built at the end of the new
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