Bulgari Signs It’s 13th Property, In The Maldives, To Open 2025
Main Photo: The new hotel envisaged
Date: July 2022
Name: Bulgari Resort Ranfushi
Location: Raa Atoll, Maldives
Number of Keys: 54 keys including a Bulgari Villa on a separate exclusive island comprising 33 Beach Villas each with individual swimming pool and 20 Overwater Villas
Seller: The site was previously a virgin island
Buyer: Bulgari Hotels & Resorts, part of the LVMH Group, since 2011. The developer is Aria Hotel Partners and Laureat
Bulgari Hotels & Resorts has announced an agreement signed for a new luxury resort in the Maldives and the resort, scheduled to open in 2025, is set to be the thirteenth gem in the Bulgari Hotels & Resorts collection.
The Bulgari Resort Ranfushi, meaning Little Gold Island in Maldivian language, will be located in the Raa Atoll of the Maldives archipelago, 45 minutes by sea plane from Maldives’ Malé airport. Surrounded by pristine waters and framed by lush, landscaped gardens, the resort will spread over 20 hectares.
The resort will comprise 54 keys including a Bulgari Villa on a separate exclusive island, 33 Beach Villas each with individual swimming pool, 20 Overwater Villas and a full range of luxury hotel facilities.
With design paramount to all other Bulgari Hotels and Resorts by Italian architectural firm ACPV ARCHITECTS Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, Bulgari Resort Ranfushi will introduce to the Maldives the uncompromising contemporary style that characterizes all the Bulgari Hotels.
The resort will also incorporate the highest standards of environmental sustainability, including a new island made to host nesting bird population.
The Bulgari Resort Ranfushi will feature four distinctive gastronomic experiences: the Italian Il Ristorante – Niko Romito, curated by the three Michelin starred Chef Niko Romito, the Chinese fine-dining Bao Li Xuan, twin of the two Michelin stars restaurant at Bulgari Hotel Shanghai, Hōseki, the Japanese concept already present at Bulgari Resort Dubai and the Italian beach food of La Spiaggia.
The resort will also offer a Bulgari Bar, the Bulgari Spa with an adjacent fitness centre, yoga pavilion, and a private library. The resort will also feature a highly curated Bulgari boutique and La Galleria, a concept store where guests can find a selection of top niche items from international designers.
Bulgari’s CEO Jean-Christophe Babin said: “We are particularly proud to have secured such an extraordinary location for the new Bulgari Resort Ranfushi, as the Maldives are a key dreamy destination for our clients from all over the world. We are convinced that this new gem of hospitality addition will ensure once again the highest levels of quality and innovation to our international customers and we look forward to sharing with them the Bulgari values in hospitality at this new, very exclusive location.”
The Maldives has much concern at this time from rising sea levels:
Most of the country’s 1200 islands are under threat from rising sea levels and being slowly swallowed by the waves through erosion.
Building to ensure safety has become ingrained as a survival tactic in one of the most vulnerable places to climate change.
Sea level rise is a problem for the entire world due to global warming, which causes glaciers to melt and the expansion of water in the ocean.
For the past half a century, sea levels have been rising at an accelerating rate, the fastest in 3,000 years.
Over the last decade, the rate has been about 4mm per year and for low lying states like the Maldives, the situation is already alarming.
Coastal flooding and storm surges will become even more common as temperatures increase.
“Even an incremental increase in sea level rise poses significant challenges for us,” Aminath Shauna, the Maldives’ Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology told CNA in April 2022.
“Our coral reefs (are) bleaching and all the islands in the Maldives have run out of freshwater. And we face increased severity of storms, our islands are getting flooded more and more, and the weather has become more extreme,” she said.
“I want people to know that we are actually living. We are experiencing the realities of the impacts of climate change on a daily basis.” It is on the small islands where the effects are already impeding people’s daily lives.
Having grown from a collection of three locations in Milan, London and Bali, Bulgari Hotels & Resorts’ collection now includes properties in Beijing, Shanghai, Dubai and Paris.
In addition to the anticipated opening in the Maldives, four new Bulgari Hotels are due to open between 2023 and 2026 in Los Angeles, Rome, Miami and Tokyo.
Bulgari Hotels & Resorts has enjoyed a relative independence from the rest of the LVMH thanks to its partnership with Marriott International’s The Ritz-Carlton which is involved in the training of staff, however, in recent years Bulgari Hotels & Resorts have been taking increasingly more control of their operations, including sales, marketing and PR.
Price: Undisclosed
THPT Comment: Notwithstanding the threat of rising sea levels, we wish Bulgari and other international hotel brands well, in this fab part of the Indian Ocean…time for some collective action?
First Seen: 4 Hoteliers and more about the rising sea levels at Channel News Asia
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