The general manager of Emirates Palace Hotel, Hans Olbertz, boasted it was the "most expensive Christmas tree ever" at its inauguration on Wednesday. The 13-metre faux evergreen, located in the gold leaf-bedecked rotunda of the hotel, is decorated with silver and gold bows, ball-shaped ornaments and small white lights.

The tree alone is valued at $10,000, but it is the necklaces, earrings and other jewellery draped around the tree's branches that give it a record value. But the hotel now regrets "attempts to overload the tradition followed by most hotels in the country with meanings and connotations that do not fall in line with the professional standards" of the hotel.

"Putting the Christmas tree is not a novelty, rather it is a tradition meant to share in celebrating occasions guests hold while they are away from their home countries and families," the Gulf News daily quoted a hotel statement as saying.

This tradition "is within the framework of the UAE's policy which is based on the values of openness and tolerance," the hotel added.

The tree, inaugurated on Wednesday, holds a total of 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa Khouri, owner of Style Gallery, which provided the jewellery.

The jewels that adorn the tree "will be recovered by their owner at the end of celebrations," Gulf News quoted the hotel statement as saying.

The tree is not the first extravagant offering from Emirates Palace - a massive, dome-topped hotel sitting amid fountains and carefully manicured lawns.

The hotel in the oil-rich Gulf emirate where the vast majority of the local population is Muslim, bills itself as a seven-star establishment, and introduced in February a package for a week-long stay priced at $1 million.

Takers of the package get a private butler and a chauffeur-driven Maybach luxury car during their stay, as well as a private jet available for trips to other countries in the region.

In May, the hotel installed a gold dispenser, becoming the first place outside Germany to install "gold to go, the world's first gold vending machine," Ex Oriente Lux AG, the German company behind the machine, said.