The Middle East’s first indoor ski resort has opened at Mall of the Emirates in Dubai.

The 22,500sq m (240,000sq ft), 25-storey Ski Dubai, owned by the Majid Al Futtaim Group, boasts a 400m ski run, a snowboarding park, a 3.5m radius quarter pipe for stunts and five multi-directional slopes with varying gradients – including a black run – a restaurant and an observation tower giving views of the whole resort.

It also features, at 3,000sq m (32,000sq ft), the world’s largest indoor snowplay area, Snow Park, split into two zones and created by Thinkwell design and Production.

An outdoor snowscape includes tobbogan slides and sled runs, a snowman-making area, climbing towers and a climbing wall, exploration caves and a snowball shooting gallery while an ice cave play area features the Ice Dragon activity funhouse.

“Many people in the United Arab Emirates have never seen snow in person before,” said Ski Dubai CEO Phil Taylor.

”With the Snow Park we wanted to give curious adult guests the chance to explore the snow and allow children an opportunity to have some fun in the white stuff too.

The resort features more than 6,000 tonnes of real snow created by an Acer Snowmec system and topped up each night.

Mall of the Emirates is a retail and leisure resort also developed by Majid Al Futtaim.