The agreement was signed by new Accor CEO Gilles Pélisson for 3 Ibis hotels in Chengdu, plus 3 additional hotels in nearby cities Yi Bing, Ya An and De Yang in Sichuan Province. Also present for the historic event were Accor Asia Pacific’s Chairman, David Baffsky, and Managing Director, Michael Issenberg, and Accor’s General Delegate – China, Shangzhi Zhang, who is pioneering the development of the Ibis brand in China.
Accor is accelerating development of its economy-hotel sector throughout Asia Pacific the opening of two Ibis hotels in Bangkok, two in Ibis in Australia, one in New Zealand and a new Ibis for the Korean capital of Seoul.
Next month Accor opens its third Ibis in China, 172-room Ibis Qingdao, which follows the successful opening of the 265-room Ibis Chengdu, last October. The first project – Ibis Tianjin - is opening a 70 room extension to the hotel the end of April. Both hotels have been performing strongly at occupancy levels of over 90% since opening.
During 2006 Accor also plans to open new Ibis hotels in Chongqing, Wuhan, Wuxi and Zhongshan with more openings in 2007 and beyond.
Accor CEO Gilles Pélisson hailed the signing as a major milestone for the pace of Ibis development in China.
“We consider China to be one of the most important countries for our group’s global development and this agreement reflects our commitment to building a network of Ibis hotels around China,” said Mr Pelisson.
“China is undergoing profound economic change. During my recent visit I was impressed by the potential of Sichuan province. It is a dynamic region and we believe that a network of up to 20 Ibis hotels could be developed in this area alone.”
Accor Asia Pacific Chairman, Mr David Baffsky, said: “The largest growth in travel in Asia comes from domestic and regional travellers who will be looking for quality, well-priced accommodation, preferably with international branding. Ibis is pioneering this market sector in Asia and with demand set to grow even more strongly with the advent of new low-cost air-carriers and advanced transport links, we believe there is excellent potential for significant growth in the Ibis network.”
Over 2,500 of Accor’s total of 4,000 hotels are in the economy hotel sector and the group’s balanced hotel portfolio has been a principal reason for Accor outperforming its global hotel competitors (who rely more on upscale hotels) over the past few years.
With 168,000 employees in 140 countries, Accor is the European leader and one of the world's largest groups in travel, tourism and corporate services, with two major international activities:
- Hotels with the Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Suitehotel, Ibis, Etap Hotel, Formule 1, Motel 6 and Red Roof Inn brands: over 4,000 hotels and 470,000 rooms in 92 countries, as well as other businesses (restaurants notably Lenôtre, casinos and travel agencies) ;
- Services to corporate clients and public institutions : 19 million people in 35 countries use a broad range of services (food vouchers, people care and services, incentive, loyalty programs) engineered and managed by Accor Services.
