Jumeirah Group, the luxury hospitality company based in Dubai that manages the Burj Al Arab, is to operate a historic hotel in Istanbul that counts the authors Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway among its past guests.
The company, part of Dubai Holding, will take over the running of the Pera Palace Hotel in the Turkish city from May, it announced yesterday.
"Pera Palace Hotel originally opened in 1892 as the destination hotel in Istanbul for discerning travellers on the Orient-Express train," Jumeirah Group said. Located in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, the hotel, described as the "longest-established luxury hotel in Istanbul", has 115 rooms. The management agreement has been signed with Demsa Group, a Turkish company.
Room 101 in the hotel has been registered as a museum by Turkey's ministry of culture. It was the room where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, liked to stay, and visitors can now see some of his personal belongings displayed there.
After delays to many of its announced projects as the global financial crisis set in, and with many developers putting projects on hold or slowing work, Jumeirah Group has had a series of openings in the past year, including properties in the Maldives, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi. This year, Jumeirah has taken on the management of properties in London and Rome.
"From the start of 2011 to the end of 2012, the group will have more than doubled the number of hotels it manages and almost quadrupled the number of countries in which it operates," Jumeirah Group said.
Over the next six months, the group is hoping to open its Jumeirah Port Sóller Hotel & Spa in Mallorca, Spain, a hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan, a property in Kuwait, and Jumeirah Creekside in Dubai.
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