Domina To Enter Middle East With Bahrain Hotel

By Karyn Strauss, Associate Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 1/1/2006

Domina To Enter Middle East With Bahrain Hotel
MANAMA, BAHRAIN Domina Hotel Group, Milan, is partnering with Al Hamad Construction & Development Co. to build the Domina Bahrain Hotel & Towers near the capital city of Manama. The hotel is scheduled to open in March 2007.

The 340-room hotel will feature three restaurants, two bars, a cigar lounge, fitness center and spa, an outdoor swimming pool, tennis court, and 20,000 sq. ft. (1,858 sq. m) of banquet and conference facilities.

Hyatt Regency Coming To Curaçao
WILLEMSTAD, CURAçAO Construction has begun on the mixed-use Santa Barbara Plantation project, the first phase of a new resortcommunity on Curaçao that will include the 350-room Hyatt Regency Curaçao Resort, Spa and Casino, as well as a commercial marina, beach club, 52 vacation club units, 128 condominium homes, 106 residential lots, 94 terrace homes and an 18-hole championship golf course. The investment for the first phase of the project is approximately US$104 million.

The Hyatt Regency, expected to open in late 2007, will be the largest hotel on the island and the first large hotel to open in Curaçao in 15 years. It will offer a fine-dining restaurant, a 9,700-sq. ft. (901-sq. m) spa and fitness center, a 5,800-sq. ft. (539-sq. m) casino, a multi-level outdoor pool with dramatic water features and poolside grill, tennis courts, and 28,000 sq. ft. (2,601 sq. m) of indoor and outdoor meeting space.

Tourism officials expect the resort to pave the way for a string of other branded hotel properties.

Westin To Rise On Beale Street
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announces the beginning of construction on the US$40 million, 203-room Westin Beale Street Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. The hotel will be Tennessee’s first Westin and the first upper-upscale, branded hotel to be built in the city in more than 20 years.

It will be located across from the FedExForum, home of the Memphis Grizzlies NBA basketball team. The hotel has been planned with special provisions in order to be an oasis for NBA athletes, such as a floor with taller ceilings and doors, shower heads mounted for NBA players and a special configuration of suites to serve the needs of an NBA team. The hotel also will boast a glass and natural stone lobby, flat-screen HDTVs in the guestrooms, a Daily Grill restaurant and plentiful meeting space.

Expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2007, the hotel will be managed by Senate Hospitality Group.