“The Arabian Riviera” BeachTech beach cleaners at "The Pearl" in Qatar.

On the East coast of the desert state of Qatar, close to the capital Doha, an artificial world of islands called "The Pearl" are being built along the Persian Gulf. In order to insure that the beaches are clean and safe for all visitors, a BeachTech Marina is in operation to prepare the finished beach areas.

Similar to "The Palm" in Dubai, where the islands are developed to look like palm trees, "The Pearl Island" was designed not only for luxury holidays in the Riviera style, but too also appear like several oysters laying side by side, with "pearls" in their midst. The Pearl consists of 13 islands with a total size of about 400 hectares (4.7M/yards2) and a coastline of 40 kilometres of which 19 kilometres (12 miles) are beaches. Four boat marinas, with a total capacity for 700 yachts form the centre of this island world. From the centre of the Pearl, one can find exclusive Five (5) Star hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, schools, kindergartens, elegant skyscrapers and beautiful beachfront villas, all of which make the Pearl a truly dreamlike experience. Architectural ideas and styles from around the Mediterranean Sea were used to insure the complete luxury experience. The estimated $20 billion dollar venture will be finished in 2014.

The organization UDC (United Development Company) is the responsible developer for this island project. While planning for the beach, UDC realized a need for beach cleaning and as a result of this, UDC purchased a self-propelled BeachTech Marina for beach maintenance. Since the beaches of the Pearl are man-made, additional work had to be done on these beaches as they were different in composition when compared to a usual beach. At the start of this phase of the beach maintenance project, these artificial beaches contained other kinds of impurities not found on natural beaches and all building rubble, rocks and the other non-native items had to be removed from the sand. This is an extreme task, even for a BeachTech; however, the solidly built, self-propelled Marina beach cleaner easily passed the challenge, especially under these hard conditions. The second phase now moves into normal beach cleaning, conducted on a regular basis.

Just like other states in this region, crude oil and natural gas are the backbone of Qatar's economy; however, there are increased efforts to grow other economic sectors, such as tourism. This is one of the main reasons why, over the past few years, there have been multiple projects and improvements of their infrastructure-in order to accommodate future expansion.

With Qatar being chosen as venue for the FIFA World Cup 2022, this area, and "The Pearl" will certainly draw more attention and tourism, benefiting the entire area. BeachTech as a partner stands by, ready to help!