In a chilly spot south of Berlin, you will soon be able to bask on a tropical beach sipping cocktails.

Malaysian businessman Colin Au cannot change the central European weather, but he is transforming a gigantic dome on a disused airfield here into a little slice of Thailand, or Bali.

The dome was threatening to become a symbol of the economic failures since German reunification.

Situated 60 kilometres south of the capital in the former communist East Germany, it was built as a giant hangar to accommodate a company building gas-filled airships capable of carrying heavy freight over long distances.

Unlike the airships, the company, CargoLifter, never took off and went bust in 2002 with 120 million euros (US$155 million) of debts.

Colin Au, already a veteran player in the global leisure business, says he knew straight away that this would be the site for his next project, the Tropical Islands.

"People in temperate countries are attracted to tropical islands, because the weather isn't that good at home," he said. "Here, it's like travelling without an aeroplane, within an hour's drive of Berlin."

Edu-tainment beach resort

He snapped up the dome for well below its market price and set about building a 200-metre long sandy beach, installing palm trees by the dozen as well as a mini rainforest and a tropical laguna.

As Au was speaking this week, workers were putting the finishing touches to the wooden houses of a Thai-style village. Time is short - this artificial paradise opens to the public on Dec 19.

At 107 metres high and with the surface area of eight football pitches, the dome is impressive. As the Tropical Islands' website proudly proclaims, "the Statue of Liberty (93 metres) could stand upright in it, and the Eiffel Tower (322m) could lie in it."

Au is hoping thousands of people will want to lie in it.

His eyes light up when he talks about the nightlife-seekers who will dance on the beach to the sounds of a DJ, the couples who will come here for the evening performances of the musical 'spectacular' Viva Brasil or the families splashing about in the water, while beach volleyball fans strut their stuff on the pitches behind.

A gigantic heating system will maintain the air temperature at 25 degrees Celsius and the water between 29 degrees and 32 degrees Celsius - and it will never rain.

But the Tropical Islands will be about more than just fun. It will, Au says, be "a sort of edu-tainment beach resort", so there will be exhibitions about the culture and fauna of Borneo and Bali as well.

Au says no one will ever get bored of the surroundings because the main "theme country" will change every three months "like a giant cruise ship travelling from place to place". After Brazil, it will be the Caribbean.

Open 24 hours

Unlike a classic holiday village, Tropical Islands is open 24 hours a day and visitors will be able to come for just a few hours, with entry prices on a sliding scale from five to 20 euros for a four-hour stay depending on the time.

But isn't Au taking a risk with this house of fun in an area where unemployment runs at around 20 percent?

"My market is Berlin," he says, making no secret of the fact that he has invested 70 million euros in the project and that it will cost 40 million euros a year to run.

Au has already built leisure parks in the United States and Australia and he expects to make a profit with his latest venture next year.

And with that, he turns back to one little piece of eastern Germany where for now at least the sun always shines.