Vranjska Banja, which once represented an important location for spa and health tourism, with almost 20 hotels and a large number of villas that have today fallen into ruin, will be revived and allowed to flourish thanks to the 90-million-euro investment of Millennium Resorts
Millennium Resorts’ investment in Vranjska Banja will have a positive impact on southern Serbia’s economic recovery and its economic and social development, as well as opening 350 new job positions. With this project, company Millennium Resorts, a member of the Millennium Team system, is investing in the further development of the Serbian economy and tourism as a whole.
Millennium Resorts will build two hotels in Vranjska Banja that will be part of the chain of American hotel company Marriott – Westin 4* and Autograph Collection 5*, representing Marriott International’s largest project in the Balkans and Millennium Resorts’ largest investment in tourism, worth 90 million euros.
Both hotels will be part of a significant hotel complex that will also include the Sofka Medical Centre, holiday apartments, villas and chalets, located in the ambience of the dense forest that surrounds this spa. The Kičer restaurant will also be renovated and will offer sweet specialities made according to old recipes of the best confectioners of Ottoman Turkey and Austria-Hungary.
Construction of the entire hotel complex has been divided into four phases, with the last one scheduled for completion in 2026.
Vranjska Banja once represented an important destination for spa and health tourism. Almost 20 hotels and a large number of villas for guest accommodation operated in this municipality, but these facilities have all today fallen into ruin and tourism is almost non-existent. With this project, Millennium Resorts is investing in the further development of Serbian economy and tourism, dedicated to return Vranjska Banja to the tourist map- not only in Serbia, but the whole of Europe.
WESTIN AND SOFKA WILL BE COMPLETED BY 2023
The first phase of the Project by Millennium Resorts will comprise the construction of the Westin Hotel and Sofka Medical Centre. Hotel Westin, the construction of which will be started soon, will represent one of the most modern hotels in Serbia, while the plan is for it to welcome its first guests in 2023.
Encompassing an area of 40,000 square metres and eight floors, it will have 190 rooms and suites, a congress centre able to accommodate 600 guests, two presidential suites of 300 square metres each, a special children’s area and a fitness and business centre.
The Spa centre, encompassing two levels, will cover an area of 4,000 square metres and will include outdoor and indoor pools, saunas, a hammam and relax-salt rooms. Making it special and unique will be the separate part intended exclusively for ladies (rendering it exceptional in Serbia and this part of Europe), as well as 20 spa rooms that will have access to their own outdoor pool.
“The Art of Being” Sofka light medical centre will also be completed under the scope of the project’s first phase. Covering an area of 6,600m2, it will be located on the site of the existing hotel Železničar, in a building dating back to 1935 that will be partially reconstructed and adapted.
The Sofka Centre will represent a completely new dimension to the country’s spa and wellness industry, providing modern medical procedures and holistic techniques of healthy living.
The second hotel, Hotel Autograph Collection, to be housed in an existing special rehabilitation hospital, will be a five-star facility offering guests 100 rooms and suites, a spa with indoor pools filled with geothermal water and a business centre.
THE WARMEST MINERAL WATER IN EUROPE
Vranjska Banja is the closest spa to a highway in Serbia, situated just five kilometres from the Belgrade-Skoplje Highway. With a new hotel capacity built with modern solutions, this excellent location will contribute to the development of Vranjska Banja tourism, offering a new level of service and meeting the needs of tourists from the country and abroad.
The water that bubbles to the surface from several springs and has a temperature of 94°C, and can even exceed 110°C, has a capacity of 140 litres per second and has positioned Vranjska Banja as the spa town with the warmest mineral water in Europe.
This water has numerous benefits and is rich in sulphur that is extremely beneficial in the treatment of all forms of rheumatism, neurological diseases, post-traumatic conditions, diseases of the digestive systems and gynaecological and skin disorders.