Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Azinko Development have signed an agreement for Fairmont to manage a new 347-room hotel in the coastal city of Baku, Azerbaijan.

Fairmont Baku is being developed by Azinko on a site next to the Azerbaijan parliament buildings and overlooking the Caspian Sea. A new complex, the Flame Towers, will incorporate the hotel, residential and commercial space and be linked by retail and leisure facilities. With Baku currently experiencing a new influx of business travel due to the resurgence of the oil sector, the hotel's opening is planned for early 2011. In 2000, the Inner City of Baku with the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower was classified as a World Heritage Site. According to UNESCO, "the Walled City of Baku represents an outstanding and rare example of an historic urban ensemble and architecture with influence from Zoroastrian, Sassanian, Arabic, Persian, Shirvani, Ottoman and Russian cultures."

Azinko Development is an offshoot of Baku-based construction company, Azinko Holdings Pic: Baku's UNESCO-listed Maiden Tower