An award-winning Bradford manufacturer of luxury free-standing baths has scooped contracts worth £250,000 to supply some of the Middle East's leading hotels.

Clearwater Collection, based in Blanche Street, Laisterdyke, is now exporting to 17 countries around the world after the latest deals were completed.

The company will supply baths to some of the leading hotels of the Middle East, including the Shangri-La in Dubai and two five-star hotels in Dar Es Salaam.

And it has also signed up to supply its products to a newly-built 200-bedroom hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The deals are the latest coup for the four-year-old company which has grown from three to 42 staff and now has business as far afield as Japan and Thailand.

Its export business has helped turnover to grow from £220,000 to more than £5 million.

Clearwater was named company of the year by a national newspaper in 2001 and has won widespread acclaim for its innovative, contemporary and traditional designs.

It specialises in handmade, luxury acrylic baths and was the first company in the world to use a double-skinned acrylic manufacturing process.

Today Clearwater managing director Darren Allison, who founded the business in 1999 with Mohan Sanger, hailed the new deals as a significant breakthrough.

"We are delighted to have tapped into the Middle Eastern market," he said. "Free standing baths are a new concept to the market over there and they have been an enormous hit.

"Clearwater contemporary baths seem to fit perfectly with the interior design of new luxury hotels throughout Asia and the Middle East."

The company recently added to its trophy cabinet when it clinched an industry Smart Award for a pioneering spa bath system.