Spain´s RIU to Pour $208 Million into New Caribbean Resorts

A new hotel in Mexico, the Club Hotel RIU Vallarta, is to join the projects for the RIU Palace Riviera Maya and RIU Palace Punta Cana. The Spanish holiday hotel chain RIU Hotels & Resorts is to inaugurate three new resorts in the Caribbean in 2006, which will bring the year to a close with a total of 30 hotels in one of the world´s major resort areas.

They are the already-publicized projects for the RIU Palace Riviera Maya in Mexico (scheduled to open on February 6, 2006) and the RIU Palace Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic (to be inaugurated in May ´06), plus a new resort: the Club Hotel RIU Vallarta on the Jalisco shore in Mexico –slated to open in November this year. These all-inclusive, five-star beachfront hotels are to be built and owned by the chain.

In addition, they will be characterized by extensive gardens on spacious grounds and modern installations with an ample accommodation capacity: 400 rooms at the RIU Palace Riviera Maya, 612 rooms at the RIU Palace Punta Cana and 550 rooms at the Club Hotel RIU Vallarta.

These three establishments have entailed an investment of €170 million for RIU, a figure that includes the price of the plots of land the resorts are to be built on.

With these 3 new additions, RIU will close this year with 30 hotels in the Caribbean and a total of 14,030 rooms in the following 7 countries: the Dominican Republic, the United States, Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Aruba.

The RIU chain invoiced €1 billion in 2005, with a total of 109 hotels, 71,000 beds and 17,000 employees. These results mean an 11 percent growth in invoicing compared to 2004 and a 6 percent growth in the number of employees.