Citalia parent company CIT will open a major new accommodation complex in Venice for September 2000.
The Italian tour operator and travel agent group has purchased a Venetian island for £8.5m and plans to open two upmarket hotels with a total capacity of 1,000 rooms. The company has invested £40m pounds in developing the resort which will account for 23% of the city’s total bed capacity when it opens next year.
Facilities at the four-star Grand Hotel Marco Polo and the five-star Hotel Villa del Parco on the island of Sacca Sessola will include an 800-seater conference centre, swimming pools, tennis courts and beaches.
A regular shuttle boat will make the 10min journey between the island and St Mark’s Square.
Citalia managing director Camillo de Simone said: “This development is unique in Venice where most of the hotels are small and don’t have room for facilities like swimming pools and conference centres.”
The development is part of a major expansion strategy for the company’s hotel division, CIT Hotels. CIT already owns a property in Tuscany and several holiday villages in Sardinia and the south of Italy.
It plans to open hotels in all of the major Italian cities over the next few years.
Sacca Sessola is due to be featured exclusively by Citalia in the UK in the operator’s 2001 brochure.