Le Méridien announces Asian openings London-based Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts is to open three new hotels across Thailand and Cambodia.

The luxury hotel group has signed operating contracts with hotel and real estate owner, TCC Property Management Company, for hotels in Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand and in Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Le Méridien Angkor, in Siem Reap, a 223-room new build property, is currently in the final phase of construction and is due to open in early September. It will boast two restaurants, a bar and a lobby lounge as well as a ballroom, meeting rooms, a business centre, health club and spa.

Le Méridien Chiang Mai is also a new build, due to open towards the end of 2006. The 400-bedroom hotel on Chang Klan Road will have a selection of restaurants and bars, meeting and banqueting facilities, a swimming pool and spa.

Le Méridien Bangkok will be a 350-bedroom hotel on Surawong Road and is also due to open late 2006. It will feature Le Méridien’s Art + Tech room design concept and become sister hotel to the Royal Méridien hotel, Plaza Athénée Bangkok.

It is only the second Le Méridien hotel in Asia Pacific to include the Art + Tech design.

The hotel will also include restaurants and bars, a ballroom, meeting rooms, a business centre and a health club and spa.

Last week, the company also announced it has signed an agreement to manage its eighth hotel in Germany.

Its owners, insurance company Aachener and Münchener Versicherungen, closed the hotel on Willy Brandt Strasse in Stuttgart for a 19m-euro refurbishment at the end of 2003. Building work is due to begin this month.

It will reopen as the five-star Le Méridien Stuttgart in November with 281 rooms – including 28 suites – meeting facilities, an executive lounge, a business centre, two bars, a restaurant and a health club with a swimming pool.

Malcolm Ross, Le Méridien’s regional managing director for northern/central Europe, said: “This is an ideal opportunity for us to strengthen our position and expand within the German market where Le Méridien already has high awareness.

“When the hotel reopens it will be the only internationally branded five-star hotel in Stuttgart,” he said.

The company currently has more than 20 hotels planned to open this year and beyond. Details: www.lemeridien.com