Monaco's space race

Monaco may be the playground of the rich and famous, home to a major Grand Prix and the resting place of Princess Grace, but it's fast running out of roomstock. The principality of Monaco, not much bigger than London's Hyde Park, thrives on tourism - more than 260,000 people visited the area last year - but total bedroom count is about 1,600, and local hoteliers say there just aren't enough to go round.

Leisure visitors to Monaco continue to grow, especially with low-cost flights to nearby Nice, but the real growth has come from conference business.

The recently opened Grimaldi conference centre, which caters for large-scale meetings with 2,000-plus delegates, has had a lot to do with this increase and has left hotels in the area turning away business 38 to 40 weeks of the year. Xavier Rugeroni, general manager of the Le Méridien Beach Plaza hotel, says he would love to take the business, but just hasn't got the room.

In response, hoteliers are expanding their properties, repositioning them to cater for a different market, or just building new rooms. Last month the Le Méridien Beach Plaza started work on an innovative refurbishment plan to increase its capacity by 20% in response to the increase in demand. The €17.2m (£12.2m) renovation will see two glass towers erected on the front of the building, each housing 33 bedrooms and taking the total roomstock to 404 bedrooms.

Sea views
The 12-storey towers will have three bedrooms on each level and a three-bedroom penthouse suite with 180-degree sea views and its own lift on the top of each column. The outside and reception area will be renovated and the hotel restaurant will be extended from about 100 seats to 260.

Plans for the restaurant are under wraps, but Rugeroni says it will connect the two towers on the ground floor and will be separated into four areas, each providing a different eating experience. Work is scheduled to complete by December next year.

The biggest renovations taking place in the principality this year are at the Métropole hotel in Monte Carlo's Casino Square. The one-time king of hotels in the area has shut up shop for an extensive refurbishment. The multimillion pound work started in September and will see the hotel lose some of its conference space, replacing it with a state-of-the-art spa, more bedrooms, and lighter and brighter restaurant. General manager Jean-Claude Messant wants the hotel to reclaim its number-one position in the principality, a title it hasn't held since the 1940s.

The hotel is scheduled to reopen on 5 May next year, a date Messant says they can't miss, as the Monaco Grand Prix takes place in May, and guests will be able to see the race from the restaurant terrace.

While some are spending millions adding more rooms to their businesses or totally refurbishing them, others are opening new hotels. The most recent property to come on line in Monaco is the four-star, 50-suite Port Palace hotel close to the harbour, which opened in early September.

And in 2005 the Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), a hotel, restaurant and leisure company owned by Monaco's royal family, opens a 330-bedroom palace hotel on the Larvotto peninsula in the north of the principality. The four-star hotel will feature two restaurants, with a total of 280 covers, 10 conference rooms and a main hall.

So, as more bedrooms come on line, hoteliers in Monaco hope to attract more visitors for both business and leisure.