The Belfast Shipyard in Northern Ireland – where the star-crossed Titanic was built – will be home to a new Titanic themed 5-star hotel.

Titanic Quarter

The 90 room boutique hotel is part of the gigantic Titanic Signature Project – an attempt to turn the 185 acre Titanic Quarter in Queen’s Island, East Belfast, into a major tourist attraction in time for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s ill-fated voyage in 1912.

The Titanic Hotel is being developed by Titanic Quarter Ltd, whose plans for the zone are just as big as the vision of the original Harland and Wolff Execs who drew up the blueprint of the Titanic, which ended up in the frigid depths of the Atlantic, along with the deaths of 1,517 passengers and crew.

Is it wise to turn a terrible tragedy like this into a Titanic themed hotel?Maybe they can get Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to headline the launch party. It’s a moot point though, because the hotel is just the tip of the commercial iceberg, so to speak.  

Hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent, and upon completion  20,000 people are expected to work or live within Titanic Quarter, a partnership between Titanic Quarter Ltd and Belfast Harbour.

A spokesperson for Titanic Quarter Ltd said that “Titanic Quarter is one of the largest mixed-use developments underway in Europe and additional hotel space is an integral part of that mix. Given the enormous global interest in the Titanic and the building’s close associations with the ship, such a hotel will add to the Northern Ireland tourist experience.”

This morbid fascination with the Titanic has been extended into much more ghastly tourism opps, like the  Titanic Cruise abroad the Balmoral -which will carry the exact same number of passengers (1,309) as the Titanic, and follow the same route on the same dates in April 2012 – exactly 100 years after the Titanic tore apart and went down.

Titanic Quarter photo courtesy Titanic Quarter Ltd.