American hotel and leisure company Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is taking over from Kempinski the operation of two hotel towers at the Bahrain City Centre.

Highly placed sources confirmed Starwood's two leading brands, Le Meridien and Sheraton, will manage the two-tower hotel currently housing the Kempinski Grand and Ixir Hotel.

The Gulf Daily News, our sister publication, had reported last week that Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim Group, the owner and operator of Bahrain City Centre and Kempinski, had decided to end their management agreement for the hotel.

The decision was taken as Kempinski has just one brand whereas Majid Al Futtaim wanted to adopt a two distinct brand strategy.

Kempinski said it will continue to manage the hotel up until midnight on June 30 when it will formally hand over the property to Majid Al Futtaim.

In Dubai, which is the only other location besides Bahrain where the Majid Al Futtaim Group has hotels connected to or close to its shopping malls and within its master-planned communities, the multi-brand strategy is already in place.

There, Majid Al Futtaim has hotel management agreements with Starwood and Accor Group.

Majid Al Futtaim owns and operates 16 shopping malls with more than one million sqm of gross leasable area), 56 hypermarkets and 53 supermarkets, 11 hotels, nine movie theatre locations with 92 screens, 16 Magic Planet sites and 45 fashion stores. Starwood's other brands are St Regis, The Luxury Collection, W, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft and Element.-TradeArabia News Service