Jetsettersblog

Timbers Resorts will open the Hotel Castello di Casole, a restored 10th century castle converted into a 41-suite boutique hotel, next April. Reservations will go live in November. Following five years of restoration, the hotel will offer guests rustic Tuscan elegance in a spectacular setting featuring over 100 acres of vineyards and olive groves, a model game reserve, a wellness center and some of the region’s finest cuisine with opening rates starting from 630 euros per night. The property is located in Castello di Casole on a 4,200-acre private estate in Tuscany, Italy.

The Hotel Castello di Casole’s 41 suites feature five styles. It will have two restaurants. Castello’s fine-dining venue Ristorante Tosca will serve a range of local, Tuscan and Italian cuisine with an emphasis on homemade pasta using fresh local produce from the hotel’s gardens, and extra virgin olive oil produced on the estate. In season, game will also be a major element to the menu with wild boar, venison, pheasant, hare and rabbit. The gourmet pizzeria, Pazzia, will feature a traditional wood-burning pizza oven, an espresso bar and gelateria. At Bar Visconti — named after Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti, who once lived at the Castello — guests will be able to have a bottle of the estate’s private label vintage, as well as a range of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while overlooking the dining terrace and pool area.

Formerly a wine cellar, the hotel’s 5,400-square-foot Essere Spa will feature seven treatment rooms with vaulted ceilings, restored stone walls and locally recycled wine cork penny tiles. The spa and wellness center will be complete with pools inspired by Roman baths and a TechnoGym fitness facility. Its outdoor spa garden, ideal for yoga and Pilates classes, will emanate the tranquility of Tuscan living. Within the hotel grounds sits a restored 18th century chapel, available for both weddings and private dinners. In addition, an amphitheater with organic stone seating is located on a grassy hillside offering a setting for private concerts. For more information, call 011 39-0 577-967560, email lfiore@hotelcastellodicasole.com  or visit www.castellodicasole.com

Caesars Entertainment Corporation unveiled plans for its Asia-Pacific debut with the groundbreaking of Caesars Palace Longmu Bay in Hainan, China. The five-star luxury resort represents the first major venture of Caesars Global Life, a non-gaming division created to develop and manage branded luxury hotels, resorts, residences, villas, retail and entertainment destinations around the world. The company’s goal is to develop 25 hotels and resorts in China over the next five years.

For Caesars Palace Longmu Bay, Caesars is partnering with Guoxin Longmu Bay Investment Holding Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Jiangsu Guoxin Investment Group Limited, one of the top investment and development companies in China. Guoxin Longmu Bay Investment Holding Co. is developing the area for global tourism, which in the first development phase covers approximately five square kilometers with a total investment of RMB 36 billion. Caesars Palace Longmu Bay will be the centerpiece of that investment with more than RMB 3 billion investment planned.

“Caesars Palace Longmu Bay will set a global luxury standard in China and build a foundation for Caesars’ expansion throughout the Asia-Pacific region, where our brands and reputation are already our most valuable assets,” said Gary Loveman, Caesars Entertainment’s chairman, CEO and president.

Lead architect PTW has created a new design for the resort, which can be viewed on Caesar’s design website. A team of top architects and designers will develop the interiors of the 1,000-room hotel. Caesars will create destination culinary experiences with celebrity and Michelin-rated chefs to serve the best in local, regional and global cuisine. Top celebrity entertainment and production shows will be featured in two distinct Colosseum entertainment venues. Caesars Palace Longmu Bay also will have 36 holes of championship golf by top golf course designers and offer a golf school by a top pro. The luxury resort also will include a marina, spa, retail and other amenities, all located on China’s only west-facing shoreline. Caesars Palace Longmu Bay is expected to open in 2014.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) unveiled a new mobile application, available for free on iPhone and Android smartphones. Jointly developed with partners American Express, Singapore Airlines and StarHub, the YourSingapore Guide app will help visitors explore Singapore on the go by enabling visitors to access the latest and most essential information about Singapore such as attractions, shopping deals, dining options, and events, all at their fingertips.

The YourSingapore Guide mobile app is designed to help make the visitor’s experience more seamless in Singapore. It provides useful tools like a location-based service that displays the attractions, products, services, and experiences that are closest to the visitors, wherever they are. Visitors will also receive attractive privileges provided through the partners, and can share their holiday experiences with their friends and families via social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare.

Complementing the YourSingapore website, the YourSingapore Guide app is a great tool to help visitors create and personalize their Singapore experience. Visitors can begin their Singapore journey by designing their desired Singapore experience on the YourSingapore website, www.yoursingapore.com,  before arrival in Singapore. Upon arrival, visitors can then make use of the myriad services found on the YourSingapore Guide app to help them maximize their stay.

YourSingapore Guide app users who are American Express Card members or Singapore Airlines and SilkAir passengers will be able to access information on exclusive year-long merchant privileges on dining, hotel accommodation, shopping and lifestyle activities, tourist attractions and transport, all at their fingertips. Visitors will also have free data access when using the app with the co-branded YourSingapore StarHub Preferred Tourist Prepaid Card. Designed with the visitor in mind, StarHub’s The Preferred Tourist Prepaid Card will offer visitors a host of tourist privileges which includes free IDD 018 calls to 18 destinations and free data access within the YourSingapore Guide.

Retailing at S$15 ($12), the card comes with S$18 ($14) worth of credit value and offers a further 30MB of bundled local data for visitors’ additional surfing needs. It is available for purchase at all StarHub shops, UOB Foreign Exchange Counters, TravelMania @ Orchard MRT and selected exclusive partner outlets. Available in the fourth quarter of 2011, StarHub’s tourist Wi-Fi will allow tourists to enjoy free wireless surfing in Changi Airport and selected hotspots throughout town. The YourSingapore Guide app is currently available for download on iOS (4) and Android. For more information, visit www.yoursingapore.com/guide  or www.starhub.com/visitsg

Celebrating the ingenuity and creativity of Belgian cuisine and art-de-vivre, the Belgian Tourist Office named 2012, the Year of Gastronomy, and announced the launch of the new Belgian Bites corner of www.visitbelgium.com, showcasing Brussels and French-speaking Belgium, Wallonia, as a gastronomic destination.

Visitors to Brussels and Wallonia in 2012 will have an array of events to choose from all year long including a tour on the Brussels Food Tramway, dining and sight-seeing as you go in a tram car redesigned by a local Brussels designer; the “Taste Magician” will roam the streets with only an electric heating plate to concoct local dishes with whatever products are at hand; there will be festivities like the Giant Omlette Celebration of Malmedy, the Soup Festival of la Roche-en-Ardennes and Belgian-style barbeques in Brussels; the Beer Cafés Rally when beer and conviviality become part and parcel of Belgium’s art-de-vivre; and dining in the courtyard of the Town Hall alongside a folkloric fair in the Grand Place and more.

The Belgian Tourist Office invited Chef Mike Colameco, host of “Mike Colameco’s Real Food” on PBS, to French-speaking Belgium on a road trip. Along the way, he met a cast of colorful Belgian foodies who introduced him to the pleasures of Belgian chocolate, beer, waffles and everything in between. Viewers will go behind the scenes with famed Belgian chefs, tour markets, gourmet food stores, hotel dining rooms and encounter sights and sounds throughout French-speaking Belgium. The two Belgian episodes of “Mike Colameco’s Real Food” are located on the videos section of the Belgian Bites corner of www.visitbelgium.com. This new page is a resource for all things Belgian gastronomy, with food and events calendars, market schedules, restaurant recommendations, recipes and much more waiting to be discovered. For more information, visit www.visitbelgium.com

As part of Minor Hotel Group’s global expansion of diverse quality brands, the launch of Avani Hotels & Resorts, an upscale hotel concept, will consolidate Minor’s presence in city and resort locations across Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Avani is opening a beach-front resort in Sri Lanka, Avani Bentota Resort & Spa, that will be fully completed by late 2011, and is located along Sri Lanka’s southern shores.

Avani will also launch a second Sri Lankan resort in 2012. Avani Kalutara Resort is situated at the tip of the Kalu Ganga river mouth in Kalutara and will feature 105 rooms.

Minor’s new hotel venture stems from an understanding of a gap for a niche brand that delivers innovative guest experiences that are fresh and grounded and focuses on the details that truly count. “Avani” stems from the Sanskrit word for “earth,” a meaning which is expressed through a grounded personality and simple sense of style. Offering relaxed contemporary inspired comfort to guests who value the details that matter, each location exhibits a passion for design that is evident in the quality of the décor, alongside an emphasis on carefully tailoring details to deliver complete guest satisfaction.

Minor Hotel Group (MHG) is a hotel owner, operator and investor with a portfolio of 37 hotels and 36 serviced suites under the Anantara, Marriott, Four Seasons, St. Regis, Elewana, Oaks and Minor International brands in Thailand, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Tanzania, Kenya, the UAE, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. Avani was created to complement MHG’s five-star Anantara brand, which offers enriching destination experiences in 15 locations with a pipeline of 50 properties by 2015. For more information, visit www.minornet.com

To celebrate the ancient tradition of the Vegetarian Festival (Sept. 27 to Oct. 5) in Thailand, Banyan Tree Bangkok is presenting an exclusive selection of signature vegetarian dishes from its sister properties in Mainland China. Combining traditional flavors from Ringha and Lijiang, to Hangzhou and Sanya, the menu is priced at THB 880 ($29) per person at the Bai Yun Restaurant. A vegetarian dim sum selection is also available for lunch. For more information, visit www.banyantree.com

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) named six cities that have been put forward by their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to apply to host the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in 2020. The cities, in alphabetical order, are Baku, Azerbaijan; Doha, Qatar; Istanbul, Turkey; Madrid, Spain; Rome, Italy; and Tokyo, Japan.

NOCs had until Sept. 1 to notify the IOC that a city within their jurisdiction was interested in applying. In addition, all of the above NOCs/cities complied with the newly introduced prerequisite criteria established by the IOC Executive Board (EB) in October 2010. The six applicant cities will now proceed to Phase 1 of the IOC’s two-step procedure, which will lead to the election of the 2020 host city in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sept. 7, 2013.

Phase 1, known as the Candidature Acceptance Procedure, focuses on a technical review and the cities’ ability to host the Olympic Games in 2020. Cities are required to answer a questionnaire, and their answers are studied by the IOC. At the end of this first phase, the IOC EB selects the cities that will become Candidate Cities and therefore move on to Phase 2.

Phase 2, known as the Candidature Procedure, concentrates on Games operational matters. Candidate Cities will be requested to submit their Candidature File — an in-depth description of their Olympic project — and will be subject to a technical assessment made by the IOC Evaluation Commission. The IOC Evaluation Commission’s appraisal will be published in a report and sent to the IOC members no later than one month before they cast their votes on Sept. 7, 2013, and in time for the 2020 briefing for IOC members. The report will also be available to the public on www.olympic.org

The Tokyo DisneySea Park, part of the Tokyo Disney Resort just outside of Tokyo, celebrates the 10th anniversary of its opening with one-of-a-kind events. With special merchandise, the time-limited Disney show “Be Magical!” highlights the anniversary year of the park, featuring Mickey Mouse in special costume and magical hat. In addition, the park’s restaurants have added anniversary menus during the celebration. This anniversary experience is available through March 19. For more information, visit www.disneyparks.com

On Nov. 11, Tivoli in Copenhagen opens Christmas in Tivoli for the 18th time, now with a new Russian theme. Among the attractions of the Russian city is a Tivoli version of St. Basil’s Cathedral, known from the Red Square in the Kremlin, featuring a 21-meter tower with onion domes and a carillon. The new Russian theme is to contribute to a renewal of Christmas in Tivoli and ensure an increase in the number of visitors during November and December. Christmas in Tivoli had almost 800,000 visitors last year.

”Tivoli will never be completed,” the founder of Tivoli, Georg Carstensen, said in 1845. With an investment of almost DKK 10 million ($1.8 million) in the Russian city, Tivoli cements its vision of ongoing innovation. The Russian city is inspired by the building style of the Czarist days with onion domes, towers and carillons. Inside St. Basil’s Cathedral, visitors can board a miniature version of the Trans-Siberian railway which will take them through Russian landscapes featuring pixies, angelic choirs and extravagant Fabergé eggs. St. Basil’s Cathedral celebrates its 450th anniversary this year, and visitors can see a copy in Tivoli.

“More and more Christmas cruises have visited Copenhagen and for the cruise-passengers, Tivoli is high on the list — and even more so with the new Christmas attraction,” said Lars Bernhard Jørgensen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen. In 2011, the traditional Santa Claus will be replaced by his Russian counterpart, Father Frost, who will enter the sleigh on the Open Air Stage in bluish, frosty colors. He is very like our own red Santa Claus and is regarded as the Russian version of the Western Santa Claus. Tivoli has about 4 million visitors every year, and 2010 saw the opening of the Tivoli Hotel, the first theme hotel in Copenhagen. For more information, visit www.tivoli.dk

Starting Oct. 23, Tokyo will introduce electric vehicle cabs such as the hybrid Toyota Prius, electric Nissan vehicle Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV from the exclusive e-cab stand in Shin-Marunouchi Building located on west side of Tokyo Station. Hybrid and electric cabs have been implemented both in Tokyo and Osaka in conjunction with the continuous engineering development of electric vehicles at Japanese auto manufacturers. For more information, visit www.japantravelinfo.com