The only five-star hotel on the beach in Kuwait, Radisson SAS hotel is offering special rates to guests during the country's popular Hala February Festival.
The hotel is offering Hala Festival rates of KD30 ($98) per night for single occupancy and KD35 per night for double occupancy with KD10 for an extra bed. Radisson SAS, which has seen business decline by almost 25 per cent since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, launched a major sales blitz in September and offered special discounted rates to citizens and residents of GCC states as part of its efforts to prop up business. Director of sales and marketing Marcello Nisi said commercial business represented the majority of the hotel's market, with very little business from leisure travellers from the GCC. He added that while the hotel had enjoyed a constant level of occupancy over the past three years, a stagnant demand with growing supply was putting extra pressure on the hotel industry. "The future travel and tourism to Kuwait will very much depend on the stability of the region and it's very difficult to predict a long-term strategy at the moment," Nisi said. He said the hotel offered a range of facilities for its target market which included commercial, government, semi-government institutions as well as leisure travellers. Radisson SAS offers 200 well-appointed rooms including 12 suites, six deluxe self-contained apartments and 49 Royal Club rooms on the Executive floor. All rooms have individually controlled air-conditioning. As a major business hotel in the country, Radisson SAS also features extensive meeting facilities which includes the Al Hashemi II, the largest wooden dhow in the world with 1,200 sq m of reception area suitable for weddings, conferences, seminars and meetings. The Al Hashemi has found a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's biggest Arabic wooden dhow. The hotel's 2,650 sq m conference and meeting space also includes 12 other meeting rooms for up to 650 persons and reception area for 1,200 people. A Kuwait Village which evokes the country's pre-oil era dwellings is a new development which features a secluded courtyard with 10 rooms including two presidential suites, a bridal suite, two junior suites and five rooms with modern, state-of-the-art facilities. Also new at the hotel is the Royal Viking Club, the largest in Kuwait and the only one located on the beach front with two temperature-controlled swimming pools, private beach area with children's playground, water sport facilities, an indoor pool, fitness centre and exercise studio, two squash courts, three tennis court, table tennis, billiard room, sauna, steam bath and Jacuzzi.