The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company will open its first hotel in Saudi Arabia, The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh on October 24.

The palatial hotel, with 493 rooms and suites, is situated next to the Diplomatic Quarter and adjacent to the King Abdul Aziz Convention Centre.

The hotel’s stately architecture is modeled on traditional palaces with ochre facades blending gracefully with the verdant landscape of the gardens.

InterContinental, the world’s largest hotel firm and the name behind hotel brands such as Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, is set to launch a new chain next year.

In a speech at the firm’s annual conference in Las Vegas, IHG’s America’s boss confirmed to staff that a new hotel brand was on the way.

“If you’re on a cereal aisle, and you’re Post (Foods LLC) or Kellogg (Co.), you want to dominate as much as you can of that shelf space,” Kirk Kinsell said.

Jumeirah has opened a new cluster of ‘water villas’, dubbed ‘Ocean Pearls’, at its all-suite Jumeirah Dhevanafushi hotel in the Maldives.

Designed to make visitors feel as if they are in the middle of the ocean, the new villas sit on platforms suspended directly above the water, nearly a kilometer offshore from the main resort.

The cluster of villas is connected by a decking walkway, which allows residents to easily access the shared infinity pool, bar, seafood restaurant, elevated library and spa treatment rooms, which are also suspended above the water.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin brand has announced its first hotel location in Chicago.

The long-awaited Virgin Hotels name, expected to tie in with existing Virgin travel offers such as Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America, has purchased the Old Dearborn Bank Building, a 27-storey structure and Chicago landmark.

Designed in 1928, the Art Deco building is currently used as office space, but will be converted to a hotel and reopened in 2013 as the Virgin Hotel Chicago.

Hyatt brand Andaz has officially opened the Andaz Shanghai, a 28-storey landmark which adds yet another top-end property to the city’s booming luxury hotel market.

The Andaz Shanghai’s 307 rooms opened to the public for the first time October 18, marking the first entry of the Andaz brand into Asia.

With rooms that offer views of the historical Xintiandi district, the hotel is decorated with mixed media artwork designed to evoke the old and new sides of the area, using items such as LED lighting, sensors, video projections and recycled materials.

Paris’s Hotel Ritz, famed for generations as the city’s highest-profile luxury hotel will close for two years from next summer for an “unprecedented” renovation.

The move comes after the five-star hotel in central Paris failed earlier this year to win France’s coveted palace designation marking a top luxury destination.

Once the hotel of choice of Charlie Chaplin, Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway, the hotel has not had a major refit since 1979.