Un hotel sólo para mujeres

Una señora saudita durante la inauguración del Luthan Hotel and Spa de Riad, que es el primer hotel exclusivamente femenino.

Middle East's first women only hotel

The Middle East's first women-only hotel has opened in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. As our religious affairs reporter Frances Harrison explains women only hotels and transport services are a growing trend world wide.

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The executive director of the Luthan Hotel and Spa says the response to the idea of a women-only hotel has been overwhelming.

The hotel has twenty-five rooms and offers round the clock services to guests. There's a pool and spa, with yoga and fitness classes, which the hotel hopes will attract women on business trips and as well as expatriates from the nearby diplomatic quarter and local women coming for fun.

This is the first spa hotel available to women all the time, pools in other hotels are only open to women on certain fixed days or hours. And in a country where women are required by law to cover themselves in Islamic dress when in public it's a huge bonus that inside the hotel they can move around uncovered as if they were at home. As the manager put it, it's like being anywhere else in the world.

Saudi tourism officials who attended the launch of the hotel have encouraged other women to invest in similar hotels across the Kingdom. Women-only hotels already exist in America, Berlin and the former Yugoslavia. And Britain, for example, has a hotel offering a floor exclusively for women while Tehran and Bombay have women only taxi services.

Frances Harrison, BBC Religious Affairs reporter

 Listen to the words

has been overwhelming
ha sido abrumadora

round the clock
(el hotel ofrece servicios) las 24 horas del día

expatriates
expatriados

diplomatic quarter
el barrio diplomático

spa hotel
un hotel spa - donde se ofrecen tratamientos de belleza y salud

required by law
obligadas por la ley

a huge bonus
una ventaja enorme

uncovered
(las mujeres pueden andar dentro del hotel) descubiertas

put it
como lo explicó (el gerente)

who attended the launch
quienes asistieron a la inauguración

exclusively
exclusivamente

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