Swiss management company Movenpick Hotels & Resorts has secured a deal to operate a luxury resort on the Noonu Atoll in the Maldives, due to open next year.

The Movenpick Resort & Spa Kuredhivaru Maldives will be the company’s first ever in the island nation and is scheduled to open in Q1 2018. No financial information has been revealed on the value of the deal.

Located in an undeveloped northern part of the Maldives, the resort will offer accommodation in 32 beach villas and 70 over water villas.

The resort’s luxury spa will be housed in a separate villa and have 14 private treatment rooms, a tranquil yoga pavilion and a health and fitness club. Further details will of the spa and wellness offer will be revealed later this year.

The property’s USP will be the privacy it offers. Located in the Maldives’ least developed region, the resort will be one of only a few tourism properties in the area.

Taking advantage of its location, the resort has been designed to offer guests the opportunity to both “hide away” and to immerse themselves in the surrounding, untouched nature. Many of the surrounding islands are still uninhabited.

Rich in marine life, the waters surrounding the resort will play an integral role in the resort’s leisure offer. There will be a variety of above and underwater experiences and the resort will house a large diving centre, as well as a small scale marine research centre and private marina for 12 catamarans.

The Kuredhivaru resort is one of 36 properties currently under planning or under construction in Mövenpick’s development pipeline.

These include projects in Chiang Mai, Thailand; Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia; and Nairobi, Kenya.

The group last year announced it will focus on expanding its presence within its core markets in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

As part of the drive, Movenpick has appointed Andrew Langdon as its new chief development officer.

The role is a new position created by the group to “grow and solidify the brand’s position” and to ensure it reaches its target of operating more than 100 properties by 2020.

“We are well under way to exceeding our 2020 target with 36 properties planned or under construction to add to the 83 hotels we currently operate,” Langdon said.

“Furthermore we are well on the way to reaching our objective of signing up to an additional 20 more hotels and resorts in 2017 alone.

“Asia will continue to be central to our growth strategy with recent milestones accomplished with the opening of Bali, Indonesia, Colombo, Sri Lanka and Bangkok, Thailand, already this year, with a further five hotels to open in the Philippines, China and three more in Thailand in 2017.”