Versace opens its first palace in Asia, in Macao

Announced in 2013, the Palazzo Versace project in Macau is finally seeing the light of day. The pandemic in particular delayed the opening of this first 5-star hotel in Asia for the Italian luxury house, owned by the American group Capri Holdings. The palace has just been inaugurated in this special administrative region on the south-east coast of China, and more specifically in Cotai, the gaming and tourism zone created on a strip of land between the two islands of Coloane and Taipa, and nicknamed the Las Vegas of Asia.

Palazzo Versace has 271 rooms on 12 levels, a wellness centre, an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool, a personal training room and two restaurants. It forms part of the gigantic Grand Lisboa Palace Resort Macau luxury hotel complex, where it will stand alongside the Grand Lisboa Palace and the first Karl Lagerfeld Hotel, due to open in May 2023.

This new Versace luxury hotel boasts a flamboyant style, with opulent mosaic and marble decorations. It is inspired by the neoclassical architecture of Italian palaces, using the house’s signature motifs such as the Medusa, the Greek key – an ornamental motif from Antiquity – and the Barocco print. All combined with Chinese symbols such as the golden dragon and the chrysanthemum flower. The rooms are furnished with linens and lamps from the Versace Home line, the label said in a press release.

For this project, the Milanese fashion house worked with SJM Resorts S.A., a subsidiary of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, a gaming concession company operating in the former Portuguese colony that was handed back to China in 1999. 

This is Versace’s second luxury hotel in the world, after the one in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. In 2000, Versace opened its first Palazzo Versace Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. But last year it did not renew its agreement, withdrawing its brand from the hotel, along with the furniture and some of the decor.