DURING the first six months of 2010, Sonesta has already confirmed plans to add seven new hotels to its portfolio for an additional 1,080 rooms worldwide.
The Sonesta Collection presently comprises 31 distinctive international upscale hotels, resorts and cruise ships. Properties currently span North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
In 2009 Sonesta added 760 rooms, including new hotels in Valledupar, Colombia, Osorno, Concepción and Calama, Chile, and a new small cruiser on the Nile River.
This January the 127-room Sonesta Hotel Cusco, Peru, near the historic Machu Picchu and Inca Trail, was re-flagged and The Sonesta Hotel Orlando Downtown with 341 rooms and spectacular views of picturesque Lake Ivanhoe also opened.
February saw the Le Royale Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt open a new luxury boutique property on the Red Sea in Egypt with 167 oversized guest rooms and suites.
Two contrasting Colombian hotels, both with 126 guest rooms, also join the family this year. The Sonesta Hotel Barranquilla opened in March with a business centre, health club and swimming pool, restaurant and lounge and 2,600 sq ft of meeting space and The Cartagena private beach hotel is set to open in June.
April saw the opening of the 40-room Sonesta Boutique Hotel Rosario, Argentina, which has a full-service restaurant, lobby bar, Solarium, heated swimming pool, conference and banqueting facilities and the 124-room Sonesta Chateau Hotel Patagonia Argentina is under the flag as of June 1 at the so-called ‘end of the world’, 1,490 miles south of Buenos Aires.