У столиці Саудівської Аравії Ер-Ріяді відкрито перший на Близькому Сході готель виключно для жінок. Як повідомляє Франсес Гаррисон, готелі та транспорт тільки для жінок стають популярними в усьому світі:

Послухати репортаж

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

Послухати слова

has been overwhelming
значно більший і позитивніший, ніж очікувалося

round the clock
цілодобово

expatriates
люди з громадянством інших країн, які живуть у Саудівській Аравії

diplomatic quarter
дипломатичний квартал

spa hotel
готель типу "спа" (з басейнами, ваннами джакузі, фітнес-центрами і т. ін.)

required by law
зобов'язані за законом

a huge bonus
величезна перевага

put it
висловився, пояснив

who attended the launch
які були присутні на церемонії відкриття

exclusively
виключно