Hotel pertama khusus untuk kaum wanita di Timur Tengah telah mulai beroperasi di ibukota Arab Saudi, Riyadh. Seperti dilaporkan wartawan BBC spesialis isu keagamaan, Frances Harrison, bisnis jasa hotel dan transportasi khusus wanita tengah menjadi trend di seluruh dunia.

Dengar ceritanya

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

Dengar kata-katanya

has been overwhelming
lebih besar dan lebih positif dari yang diharapkan, membanjir

round the clock
nonstop, 24 jam per hari

expatriates
warga dari negara lain yang kini bermukim di Arab Saudi

diplomatic quarter
kawasan tempat banyak kedutaan dan konsulat asing serta kediaman diplomat dan staff diplomatik asing

spa hotel
hotel yang menawarkan jasa dan fasilitas perawatan kecantikan

required by law
diwajibkan oleh undang-undang, harus melakukan sesuatu karena ketentuan negara

a huge bonus
keunggulan besar, kelebihan besar, keuntungan besar,

put it
dijelaskan, dikatakan

who attended the launch
yang menghadiri peluncuran

exclusively
hanya, secara khusus