Limassol hotels go into millennium mode

By Jean Christou

LIMASSOL hotels are closing down in droves to refurbish in time for the millennium, and many already have bookings for New Year’s Eve 1999, managers reported yesterday.

The town’s Churchill Hotel is closing for six months and will reopen as the Holiday Inn, while Le Meridien is to shut in December for ten weeks of renovation, and the Saint Raphael has already closed.

Le Meridien’s manager John Wood said yesterday his hotel’s refurbishment would cost in the region of £1.5 million, while new conference facilities would cost another £3 million.

“We expect with the Millennium to be very busy,” Wood said adding Le Meridien already had 60 to 70 bookings for the celebrations.

Wood, who is also chairman of the Hotel Managers Association of Cyprus, said most hotels were going into millennium mode and making a lot of changes, either closing down or closing floors for refurbishment.

“We are upgrading for the millennium,” echoed Churchill manager Petros Pierides. “And we expect to open up as the Holiday Inn.” He refused to say how much the upgrading would cost.

With so many top hotels out of action, it appears businessmen going to Limassol might be pushed for somewhere to stay.

However, Woods said Le Meridien clients had been taken care of, and that the hotel’s losses would be minimal.

“This is not a bad winter, but we believe next winter is going to be very good,” he said, adding that a lot of companies, as well as individuals, would be celebrating the millennium.

“The outlook is relatively bright,” Wood said, adding that the painful Limassol road construction was almost at an end.

“What is boils down to is that Limassol has probably seen the worst, and the future can only get better,” Wood said.

“Basically, (hoteliers) are looking forward. Limassol has had a rough time but the future seems to be positive.”

Referring to the closure of a lot of hotels in the town in recent years due to a lack of tourists, Wood said: “That era seems to have come to an end.”

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.