AFP - Shrugging off the global financial crisis, Dubai overnight toasted a new luxury hotel with a 20 million dollar bash attended by film stars and sporting greats and marked by a spectacular fireworks display.More than 2,000 world celebrities were invited to the event, which began Thursday night and continued into Friday.Among those who showed up for what the local press described as the "party of the decade" were Hollywood stars Robert de Niro, Charlize Theron, Mischa Barton and Wesley Snipes.Other notables who walked the red carpet at the 1.5-billion-dollar "Atlantis, The Palm" hotel included singers Kylie Minogue, who performed before the fireworks display, and Shirley Bassey, Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra and catwalk model Yasmin Le Bon.

Located at the trunk-top of the Palm Jumeirah, one of three palm-shaped islands, Atlantis occupies the entire central part of a huge breakwater.The 1,539-room hotel is made up of two pale rose towers, which are linked by a bridge which houses a 35,000-dollar-a-night suite that has a long waiting list, according to the management."Where we are now there was water five years ago," said Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, the chairman of local developer Nakheel, at the inauguration.The bash cost a hefty 20 million dollars, said Sol Kerzner, the South African billionnaire, hotel and gambling tycoon, who organised the party."We built something that's quite extraordinary.

We've got to tell the world about it," Kerzner told AFP about the lavish hotel.The hotel opened unofficially on September 24 and has had an occupancy rate of 80 percent, Kerzner said. "We don't know how long it's going to take for the economy around the world to take off again," he added.The Dubai hotel is inspired by the original Atlantis that Kerzner built in the Bahamas but is not an average 5-star hotel.It boasts the largest waterpark in the Middle East and a gigantic aquarium in which 65,000 fish, along with an enormous whale shark, swim in 11 million litres of water.But the lavish party took place as Dubai, which has become a regional business and tourism hub, begins to feel the heat of the global financial meltdown.

The wealthy government of the United Arab Emirates has earmarked a 32.6 billion dollar credit facility to shore up confidence in its banking sector but has failed to encourage banks to continue financing the real estate sector, a major engine of Dubai's rapid economic growth over the past few years.The government-controlled Nakheel had announced few days ago that it was scaling down its activities, although the two other iconic palm-shaped islands are far from being complete.

In a sign of serious concern, Dubai set up Wednesday a high-profile committee to assess the impact of the crisis on the emirate's economy."We cannot be in a state of denial about the challenges," said Nasser al-Shaikh, general director of Dubai's Department of Finance announcing the forming of the committee.Kerzner's company also recently laid off 800 of its employees at Paradise Island Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas because of a sharp drop in the number of American visitors.

Those financial concerns were however put aside on Thursday night for the memorable party in this Muslim, yet very open, emirate, where local dignitaries in traditional white tunics, and women in black cover-all abayas mingled with women in fashionable revealing dresses, while alcohol flowed like water.Fireworks which were said by organisers to be seven times larger than this year's Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing, lit up the sky along the sea front of Dubai, erupting from every branch of the palm island.