What started out as a nine-room guesthouse facing Ghadira Bay in 1984, is set to grow into a 571-room hotel with a massive 700 square-metre pool providing an “all inclusive” service to its residents.
The Sea Bank Hotel wants to add 320 rooms to its existing 251 rooms in a new terraced development set to rise to 10 floors, double the height of the existing hotel, a project development statement submitted to the planning authority (MEPA) has revealed.
The development will be subject to an environmental impact assessment.
“In today’s world hotels must be of a certain size to benefit from economies of scale and have competitive rates,” hotelier and developer Silvio Debono told MaltaToday.
The hotel extension will require 4,900 square metres of land in the area known as Ic-Cens, right behind the existing hotel. Part of the land already serves as a car park but the rest of the land is under cultivation.
But Debono insists the development conforms to guidelines set in the local plans and that the agricultural land in question is not irrigated land.
The local plan actually earmarks most of the land identified for the extension of the hotel for “restrained development.”
The Seabank Group acquired the property in 1984, at that time consisting of a nine-room guesthouse. The first major expansion took place in 1991 when the guest house was transformed into an 80-room hotel. The hotel was extended in 1996 to a total of 202 rooms and again in 2005, to 251 rooms.
In April 2005, the Sea Bank started operating under the RIU franchise which operates 100 hotels in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. The chain is partly owned by TUI, one of Europe’s largest tour operators.
“TUI, which is the largest tour operator in the world, is making pressure to increase the number of tourists it sends to Malta. But this requires more high quality services these tourists,” Debono said.
The developers claim the extension is necessary to satisfy the typical RIU customer “self-contained” holiday offering all-inclusive packages. “This is the new trend in tourism as tourists want to know exactly how much a holiday costs them.”
The project’s PDS claims the 320 new rooms are needed to make the provision of round-the-clock animation and entertainment viable. It will also employ anything between 165 to 190 new jobs.
Debono said the project will improve the winter product by promoting “eco-driven” activities like bird watching, horse-riding and trekking in the area. “The environment is very important for us. Through these activities we aim to attract tourists in winter.”
The Sea Bank is not the only hotel in the Mellieha area proposing an extension. The Ramla Bay hotel in Marfa has also applied for the construction of 102 new rooms in an outside development area.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt