AccorHotels, the world’s leading hotel operator, is investing heavily in the refurbishment of its hotel portfolio, with over £28 million invested in renovation projects in 2015 alone.
The group’s HotelInvest division launched multiple renovation and refurbishment projects in the UK last year. This included the further roll out of the Sweet Bed™ by ibis into thirteen ibis Budget hotels as well as full renovations of 24 ibis public areas. In the midscale brands, HotelInvest invested in the full roll out of the new ‘Live and Dream’ Novotel bed across the UK Novotel network, a full renovation of Mercure London Bridge, and the conversion of its restaurant into a Marco Pierre White franchise.
Among its other projects, HotelInvest also succesfully converted three former Formule 1 hotels into extensions of the adjacent ibis (London Thurrock and Liverpool centre) and ibis Budget (London Barking) hotels.
Its current refurbishment programme includes the introduction of a new room design, which has been already deployed in over 1,000 ibis rooms. It has established its new design, called the “sweet room”, as part of its drive to offer greater comfort, well-being and modernity in the economy hotel segment. The concept is being introduced in ibis hotels including London Excel, Birmingham Airport, Portsmouth, Manchester centre, London Docklands, Reading and Edinburgh Centre, as well as the new ibis Cambridge scheduled to open in September this year.
Hervé Deligny, COO of HotelInvest, UK, commented: “One of HotelInvest’s key activities is to invest in our existing portfolio to ensure our hotels are as attractive as possible to guests and consequently profitable. We continue to make significant investments across our brands, including the launch of the ibis sweet room which is one of the most contemporary and comfortable products in the economy segment.
“At the same time we are keen to add to our UK portfolio and are actively seeking great hotels in exceptional locations.”
HotelInvest recently announced that it will open five new hotels in the UK during 2016 and 2017, investing over £160m to add to its existing UK portfolio of 97 properties (15,395 rooms). These investments include the flagship Novotel at Canary Wharf, London, which at 39 storeys will be the world’s tallest Novotel, providing 313 rooms.
HotelInvest was formed in November 2013 when AccorHotels took the decision to split its business into two distinct fields of expertise: HotelServices, a hotel operator and franchisor, and HotelInvest, a hotel owner and investor.
HotelInvest is tasked with developing AccorHotels’ owned portfolio of hotels. This comprises optimisation of the ownership structure of its existing portfolio to ensure maximum profitability; managing its assets by investing in renovations, refurbishments or extensions; and developing the AccorHotels portfolio by buying hotels or building new ones.
In total AccorHotels UK and Ireland employs more than 5,000 people in the UK. It has a portfolio of 222 hotels with more than 30,000 rooms across its large portfolio of internationally renowned brands: Sofitel (luxury), Pullman (upscale), Novotel (mid-scale), Mercure (mid-scale), Adagio (mid-scale), ibis (economy), ibis Styles (economy) and ibis budget (budget).