Kish Cash

Is Hossein Sabet the Persian answer to Dubai? Or the Iranian Rick Caruso? Probably a little of both:

He has built this island’s fanciest establishment, the Dariush Grand Hotel, modeled after the Persian capital of Persepolis, which dates from 500 B.C. He also owns 11 hotels in Europe and the Canary Islands.

One of the Iranian islands in the Gulf, Kish is accessible to foreigners without a visa and to Iranians looking to vacation in a relatively relaxed atmosphere, though things are not as relaxed now as they were before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power.

In addition to the Dariush Grand – named for Darius the Great, the empire builder of the sixth century B.C. who was eventually defeated by the Greeks at Marathon – Sabet owns five other hotels here and a huge park with exotic birds, an aquarium, a butterfly enclave and the dolphin show.

[…] He says he is also negotiating to build the first Disneyland in the Middle East, but his passion is Iran and its Persian identity. “I have reached a point in life that money does not matter anymore,” he said in an interview at the Dariush Grand. “I want to make people happy. I want to revive the 7,000-year-old identity of this nation.”