Club Med will open in Marbella in July 2019 after remodelling the Don Miguel hotel

It was a great party at the old Don Miguel hotel in Marbella earlier this week, when directors of Magna Hotels & Resorts, the company which owns the building, and Club Med, the French group which will run the establishment, laid the first stone of a project to reform the legendary hotel, which is due to reopen in July next year.

The renovation works will create 300 jobs, and a further 300 positions when the complex is open and running. About 1,000 indirect jobs will also be created by the project.

The hotel first opened in 1974 and closed down in 2004. Its name, layout and concept will have changed completely when it opens its doors to guests in the summer of 2019. Club Med-Magna Marbella will be open 11 months of the year as an all-inclusive resort for families and it will also new business and event facilities.

The number of rooms will remain the same - 486 - but there will be new additions. The new hotel, built on 125,000 square metres of land, will have several restaurants, bars, a top class spa, a business and events centre with room for up to 1,000 people and 60,000 square metres of sports facilities including 11 tennis courts, explained the president of Magna Hotels & Resorts, Jihad Megharief.

The plans will maintain the existing structure but give a new air to the front, which will be white, but the interior of the the building will be completely ripped out and remodelled. The hotel will offer child care from the age of four months and will have a wide variety of sports facilities on the land around the building. The renovation works have just begun, as the relevant permissions have now been granted by Marbella council.

Luxury hotel

The company, which is owned by an Arab investment group, bought the hotel in 2012. At that time it announced that it planned to reopen it as a luxury hotel for Marbella.

In his speech, the CEO of Magna Hotels & Resorts asked people living in the area to be patient during the construction phase and thanked the council for its support for the project. He said the laying of the first stone symbolised the start of the conversion of the former Don Miguel into a top-of-the-range family hotel. The group will be investing nearly 72 million euros on the project.

The company hopes between 300,000 and 400,000 guests a year will stay in the hotel's rooms, which have sea and mountain views. It believes this is possible thanks to the association with Club Med, a partner with over six decades of experience in managing all-inclusive family hotels.

With this new establishment Club Med, which operates 70 four and five star hotels in 26 international destinations, is returning to Spain and the objective, according to president Henri Giscard d'Estaing, is to convert this hotel in Marbella into the company's flagship in this country. The president of the French group highlighted its location, with easy access, just 30 minutes from Malaga airport, which is ideal for international clients, who will be staying in a complex whose design will be inspired by powerful Spanish cultural themes.

The head of Club Med also stressed the impact that this project will have on Marbella and the nearby area, principally because it will use local suppliers and that will produce important benefits for companies in the area. Giscard d'Estaing pointed out that after the French market, the next most important for the group is China, which opens interesting perspectives for Marbella.

Among other VIP guests, the party to celebrate the laying of the first stone of the new hotel was attended by the mayor, Ángeles Muñoz, who expressed her satisfaction that the hotel will be opening again, will create jobs and benefit the local economy. The fact that a powerful tourism company like Club Med has decided to return to Spain is a reflection of what Marbella has to offer, she said.