The 307-room Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort is back in full operation, following a $15 million renovation project to repair Hurricane Ivan damage in 2004.
All rooms now offer high-speed wireless Internet, balconies and marble bathrooms; the La Mer Spa added 1,500 square feet, including four treatment rooms and a couples suite with a Jacuzzi; and meetings facilities also were expanded by 4,500 square feet.
The Westin Resort & Spa, Los Cabos, Mexico, completed a $1.3 million rooms renovation, including new work desks, furniture, furnishings and artwork, among other things.
Westin said it brought in craftsmen from throughout Mexico to refinish more than 1,500 pieces of furniture and held two in-house workshops to ensure a uniform and distinct room redesign.
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.
Both travel agents & Modern Bride Magazine agree that Palace Resorts is their favorite all-inclusive chain in Mexico and the Caribbean.
In the “Ninth Annual Readers´ Choice Awards,” which appeared in the December 2005 issue of the travel trade publication Recommend, Palace Resorts was voted the “Best Resort/Hotel Chain / All-Inclusive.”
Coco Palms Ventures has finalized the purchase of the soon-to-re-open Coco Palms Resort on the island of Kaua´i.
The sale encompasses 16.4 acres of prime real estate and an additional 17 acres of State leasehold land (the storied coconut grove). Purchase price was not disclosed.
InterContinental Hotels Group, the largest hotel group by number of rooms, announced last week the addition of its newest 310-room Crowne Plaza hotel in Mexico City.
The InterContinental Hotels Group portfolio in Mexico is represented by five of its brands including the upper upscale, upscale, full service, limited service and upscale extended stay segments with more than 80 hotels and nearly 14,000 rooms.