Grupo Onyria, a Portuguese company, has big plans Carpe Diem Claros Hotel in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city.
The company acquired a 57 percent stake in the recently opened resort. The firm reportedly paid $25 million for the 504-room hotel, which includes a spa but few other traffic-generating attractions.
For that reason, Grupo Onyria plans to build a 27-hole golf complex adjacent to the hotel. The company hopes to break ground on the complex in late 2010 or early 2011. It hasn’t yet announced a designer for the complex.
Grupo Onyria is no stranger to the golf business. It owns Hotel Quinta da Marinha Golf Course in Cascais, Portugal, which has a golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., as well as the Palmares resort in Lagos, in the Algarve region of Portugal. Palmares has an 18-hole course that was designed by Frank Pennink, and it’s expected to open a Jones-designed nine this summer.
Grupo Onyria also has a 20 percent interest in Chateau des Vigiers Golf & Country Club in the Bordeaux region of France, which has a 27-hole, Donald Steel-designed complex.
People have been playing golf in Turkey since 1895, when Istanbul Golf Club opened, and today many observers believe the nation is a future hot spot for golf development. In fact, the Turkish Golf Federation believes the nation can accommodate about 100 new golf properties over the next decade or so.