LONDON, April 16, 2002 å- Juergen Bartels, chief executive officer of Le Meridien Hotels & Resorts, today announced the companyå‘s plans to manage the 680-room Le Meridien Frankfurt Airport, due to open in 2005.

Touting the dramatically-designed, futuristic property as “the top airport hotel in the world,” Bartels says that Le Meridien Frankfurt Airport represents a new breed of hotel: one which integrates with the new culture of intra-European rail transportation, adding an important element to the new synergies being created through the cooperation of air and rail travel.

“Currently, the title for ‘Best Airport Hotel in the World’ is vacant,” Bartels says. “Le Meridien Frankfurt Airport will not only be at the very heart of one of the world’s great transportation centres, but will take quality to a level that has never before been seen from an airport hotel property - not in Europe, not in America, not anywhere in the world.”

Being constructed atop the new Airrail Centre Frankfurt, the 680-room hotel will be designed entirely in Le Méridien’s new Art + Tech style. The brainchild of Bartels, Art + Tech represents a new generation of hotel which combines substance and comfort with style. Each guestroom will feature specially designed beds with the highest quality linens and duvets, 42-inch plasma flat screen television sets featuring high speed internet access and in the bathroom, freestanding power shower towers with multiple body jets and etched glass wash basins set on limestone tables. Specially commissioned artwork and backlit photographs in the rooms will take inspiration from the historical and cultural aspects of the city of Frankfurt and its surrounding areas. Exclusive amenities will include luxury toiletries and 100-gram bars of Hérmes soap.

Art + Tech Forum, the hotel’s meeting space, will feature 2000 square meters of conference facilities, the largest room being 680 square meters to accommodate 500 guests. The meeting facilities will offer the most technically advanced equipment and services available anywhere.

Additional facilities will include a Grand Lobby, restaurant, lobby bar and lounge, business centre, large wellness and fitness centre and parking for 200 cars.

Airrail Centre Frankfurt is a mixed-use project currently under construction at the new rail station facility, served by covered walkways to all terminals at Frankfurt Airport. Guests and meeting attendees will have direct access to ICE high-speed trains, the regional public transportation system (S-Bahn) and all major highways. Frankfurt City Centre, Wiesbaden and Mainz are each within a 15-minute drive.

The Developer of Airrail Center is AIRRAIL Center Frankfurt Gmbh & Co. KG. The company is a joint venture between IVG, Bilfinger + Berger and Adler Real Estate.

——-