Travel to the Middle East is rising eighteen percent a year—fueling a resurgence in the palace-style hotels that first pampered kings, aristocrats, and early package tourists more than a century ago. Susan Hack tracks the trend in Egypt, Syria, and Abu Dhabi—and finds that both hospitality and the hotel as we know it have their roots in the troubled region

Audio Slideshow: Susan Hack takes a second look at the hotel resurgence in the Middle East in light of recent events

"Arabian culture and tradition are synonymous with generosity, hospitality, and all-around warmth," gushes the brochure for the new Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. So I am vexed after driving across the desert to have sand-colored tanks turn me away. A machine gun–wielding soldier at the gate explains that the geniality is temporarily on hold because the rulers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—emirs, kings, and sultans all—have commandeered the place for their annual Gulf Cooperation Council meeting.

Opened last year to the tune of three billion dollars, the Emirates Palace is a twenty-first-century Arab Gulf version of Istanbul's Topkapi Palace, with 114 domes; 10.5 million square feet of buildings, beaches, and gardens; crenellated walls; an echo of the harem in two sex-segregated spas; and a staff of two thousand, some of whom use Segway scooters to ameliorate the mile-and-a-half round-trip between the marble-paved East and West wings.

Already it has become a national landmark for Abu Dhabi, the richest of the seven United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), whose ruling Al Nahayan family is trying to catch up with the sheikh of Dubai's neighboring tourism and shopping-mall empire. Unlike other recent Gulf hotels with Arabian Nights–themed architecture and striking seafront settings (Dubai's Royal Mirage and Madinat Jumeirah among them), the Emirates Palace is actually a palace: Six royal apartments with private elevators, secret passages, and solid-gold bathroom fixtures are for the exclusive use of the leaders of the six Arab Gulf states.

I live in Cairo, where palace hotels debuted more than a century ago to lodge kings, aristocrats, and early package tourists visiting monuments along the Nile. The turmoil from Iraq to Israel would seem to argue against a Mideast hotel renaissance. Yet traveling for pleasure and on journalistic assignments from Morocco to the Gulf states, I have watched the Arabian palace hotel concept taking off anew. Foreigners curious about Islamic culture in the wake of 9/11, business travelers busy reshaping Arab economies, wealthy Muslims choosing to vacation closer to home, and the geographic gift of year-round beaches a short hop from Europe have all contributed to a boom in inbound travel of eighteen percent per year, according to the World Tourism Organization.

The latest hotel projects range from the quaint to the grand, from labors of love with a handful of rooms to collaborations between famous architects and major corporations. In the North African medinas of Fez, Marrakech, and Tunis, entrepreneurs have transformed centuries-old houses into boutique hotels and erected postmodern Casbahs in surrounding deserts. An eleventh-century-style mud-brick palace, the Adrère Amellal ecolodge has risen in Egypt's Siwa Oasis. In Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has re-created an ancient walled city replete with electric dhows plying artificial canals and a massive hotel, Al Qasr ("The Palace"), inspired by his grandfather's summer residence.