Plans for the world’s largest luxury yacht hotel, which was due to open in London in time for the 2012 Olympics, have been put on hold as a result of the global economic crisis.

According to the original plans, the 170 metre super-yacht would have been permanently moored at London’s Docklands, with 158 rooms and suites.

Britain sent the decommissioned QE2 (Queen Elizabeth 2) to the Gulf as a floating hotel. Now Dubai is to return the favour, building the world’s biggest yacht to be anchored beside the Thames as a floating hotel.

The Aquiva is expected to be the world’s largest pleasure boat.

It will enable hotel guests to obtain a flavour of the mega-yacht lifestyle when it is moored amid what today is a semi-derelict London landscape of warehouses and building sites.