Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts has announced plans for a new luxury retreat – Banyan Tree Lijiang – to open in southern China in April 2006.

The highlight of the new resort – which is set within the mountainous Yunnan Province – will be the Banyan Tree Spa Lijiang.

The spa will feature six heated treatment rooms, a traditional Chinese medicine hall, a gym and a yoga room.

Treatments will be inspired by the mountain tea indigenous to the area, although the spa menu has yet to be finalised.

The resort will have 40 deluxe villas, which will measure at least 350sq m (3,800sq ft) each and include private heated outdoor jet pools or plunge pools.

There will also be 13 pool villas, one two-bedroom pool villa and one presidential villa.

Each of the 55 villas offer views of the 5,600m (18,400ft) Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Banyan Tree Lijiang will also offer extensive meeting facilities, a tennis court, a library and games room and Bai Yun Chinese Restaurant, which partially floats over a courtyard pond.

The new resort at Lijiang follows the launch of Banyan Tree Ringa in nearby Shangri-La, which had its soft opening in September.

Banyan Tree operates six luxury resorts located in Phuket, Thailand; Maldives Vabbinfaru; Binten, Indonesia; Bangkok, Thailand; Seychelles and Shangri-La, China. Details: www.banyantree.com