Kingdom Hotels Investments Company, which is managed by the crown prince Alwaleed bin Tatal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has decided to build Raffles resort in the central sea city of Da Nang, which is estimated to cost $65mil.

The news about the investment decision were released by the Da Nang Investment Promotion Centre on January 31. Raffles resort is expected to be a luxurious resort in the city, which will comprise 150 rooms. It is estimated that the resort will be operation in 2011.

The resort will cover an area of 15ha along the Son Tra – Dien Ngoc sea tourism route, based on the development of the licensed project on building Vegas Club invested by the US-based Magnum Company. The US investor was granted the license to build the tourism complex in 2003, which estimated to cost $12mil. However, the implementation of the US invested project has been on half way as the investor faced financial difficulties and may have the license revoked.

The fact that Kingdom Hotels Investments decided to cooperate with Magnum will not only help the project revive, but also give it a higher investment value. With the decision to develop the licensed project, the investor of Raffles resort will not have to follow procedures to get a new license. It will only have to ask competent authorities for the project expansion and follow the procedures on changing investors.

According to the Da Nang Investment Promotion Centre, Kingdom Hotels Investments has paid the land leasing fee to the city’s authority. It has committed to begin the construction of the resort in November 2007.

This is the first project among a series of projects that Kingdom Hotels Investments has planned to run in order to meet the increasingly high demand for high-grade hotels and resorts in the fast growing economies in Asia.

(Source: Vietnam Net)