Around 10 properties on AccorHotels’ radar

AccorHotels has announced that it will be opening close to 10 hotels in India this year with most of them being under the ibis and Novotel brands. Jean-Michel Casse, Chief Operating Officer, (India and South Asia), AccorHotels, reveals, “We will be opening a Novotel in Nagpur and Guwahati, and an Ibis in Coimbatore. This is apart from our soon-to-be-opened Mercure in Dwarka in Gujarat which will be a component of leisure and religious travel. This year we plan to open around 10 hotels which will be a key milestone for us. This will take our current inventory of 8,700 rooms to more than 10,000 rooms this year and get to 55 hotels by end of 2017. This year will also be an important year for us as we will be stepping into the Tier markets. We have to be present where are customers are going which is driving the development.” The hotel giant is also slated to open a convention and exhibition centre in Jaipur shortly. The hotel group recently opened an Ibis in Kochi which goes to show its strong focus on tier II cities as well. In terms of development, AccorHotels is looking at densification in the cities it is already present in. It also plans to open a convention and exhibition centre in Jaipur shortly. Casse adds, “A major chunk of our business is the corporate segment followed by MICE which we have been really focussing on with the opening of Novotel Hyderabad Convention Centre and Novotel Vishakhapatnam which is a big MICE hotel. We are also operating the convention centre in Lavasa, Pune.”