Sol Melia to Manage Five-Star Hotel in Sicily’s Agrigento in 2011

Sol Melia has reached an agreement with Italia Turismo to manage a five star hotel in Sciacca, Sicily from 2011 under the Melia brand, incorporating all of the services and features of the Spanish hotel brand.

The hotel will provide 209 rooms and 246 apartments and will form part of a luxury resort development in the Sicilian region of Agrigento. The region will add to its appeal as a luxury travel destination with the addition another luxury resort and two golf courses (with the possibility of a third in the future) in addition to the Melia hotel.

The hotel will lie alongside a 2-kilometer-long beach and will provide three swimming pools, two restaurants, a lounge & grill bar, a convention centre and numerous sports facilities such as tennis basketball and volleyball courts and a football pitch.

In addition to the 209 guest rooms, the 246 apartments will also be sold as part of the normal hotel sales operation, although other forms of commercializing the apartments in the future are currently being analyzed.

Another of the strong points of the new Melia hotel in Sicily will be the hotel Spa, an area measuring 1,200 square meters devoted to the wellbeing of the body and soul and with access to an authentic thermal water source. The Spa will be operated under the Sol Melia luxury Spa brand, Yhi Spa.

This new project extends Sol Melia’s operations in Italy where it already operates five hotel –Tryp Verona, Melia Poltu Quatu (Sardinia), Melia Roma Aurelia Antica, Melia Milano and Melia Olbia (Sardinia). In 2010 the company will also begin to operate the Gran Melia Roma. The project also extends the company’s presence in Europe where it is already the fifth biggest hotel chain on the continent.