Sol Meliá Trumpets Grand Opening of New Resort in Cuba Later This Year

Sol Meliá, the Majorca-based hotel chain, is determined to beef up its already hefty presence on the Caribbean island of Cuba with the addition this fall of a spectacular 925-room lodging in Santamaria Key, a breathtaking sandy islet off Cuba´s northern coast.

The new all-inclusive Meliá Las Dunas will feature an amazing gastronomic offer made up of half a dozen bars and a number of restaurants, including a smorgasbord, a steak house, a Cuban food restaurant and another one serving the finest international cuisine money can buy.

At the same time, guests will have the chance of enjoying an assortment of conveniences and in-house facilities, like a sport club, several tennis courts, batting machines, climbing walls, Internet hookup, stores and medical outpost.

The new hotel will jack up Sol Meliá´s offer in this key where two other establishments run by the Spanish company are already in operations there. Sol Meliá is currently managing 1,583 rooms in that key.

During a presentation that took place during the recently concluded 2006 International Tourism Fair in Cuba, execs from Sol Meliá said that the hotel chain is intended to turn Santamaria Key into “a unique and different travel destination.”

According to the company´s front office, Sol Meliá´s hotels amassed a third of the 2.3 million tourists that visited Cuba in the course of 2005, including sunbathers from Canada, Germany, Spain, UK, France, Italy, Mexico and Portugal.

The chain´s portfolio in Cuba accounts for a grand total of 8,375 rooms scattered in 21 hotels on the island nation´s major travel destinations and circuits. Nearly 34 percent of those hotels are clustered in Varadero Beach, though by mid December as much as 40 percent of all accommodations will be in the offshore keys.

Sol Meliá, the leading hotel company in Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with over 250 lodgings in as many as 30 countries in four different continents.