25 मार्च, 2008 - Published 12:17 GMT

मध्य पूर्व में महिलाओं का एकमात्र होटल

The executive director of the Luthan Hotel and Spa says the response to the idea of a women-only hotel has been overwhelming.

The hotel has twenty-five rooms and offers round the clock services to guests. There's a pool and spa, with yoga and fitness classes, which the hotel hopes will attract women on business trips and well as expatriates from the nearby diplomatic quarter and local women coming for fun.

This is the first spa hotel available to women all the time, pools in other hotels are only open to women on certain fixed days or hours. And in a country where women are required by law to cover themselves in Islamic dress when in public it's a huge bonus that inside the hotel they can move around uncovered as if they were at home. As the manager put it, it's like being anywhere else in the world.

Saudi tourism officials who attended the launch of the hotel have encouraged other women to invest in similar hotels across the Kingdom. Women-only hotels already exist in America, Berlin and the former Yugoslavia. And Britain. for example. has a hotel offering a floor exclusively for women while Tehran and Bombay have women only taxi services.

Frances Harrison, BBC Religious Affairs reporter

has been overwhelming
अपेक्षा से कहीं ज़्यादा

round the clock
चौबीस घंटे

expatriates
अन्य देशों से आए लोग जो अब सऊदी अरब में रह रहे हैं

diplomatic quarter
ऐसी जगह जहाँ विदेशी दूतावास हों और राजनयिक रहते हों

spa hotel
ऐसे होटल जहाँ सौंदर्य उपचार भी उपलब्ध हों

required by law
देश के क़ानूनों के तहत

a huge bonus
बहुत बड़ा फ़ायदा

put it
समझाया, व्याख्या की

who attended the launch
जो लोग उदघाटन में मौजूद थे

exclusively
विशेष तौर पर