Paris -- The Louvre Hotels/Golden Tulip Hospitality Group alliance, the hotel industry’s 8th-largest player worldwide, is taking its ambitious growth strategy to the next level. Louvre Hotels and Golden Tulip Hospitality Group have inaugurated five hotels over the past month and are planning to open another five by the end of this year. Altogether, they have added 60 hotels to their portfolio this year.

The five hotels that they have inaugurated this month are:

• Golden Tulip El Mechtel (Tunisia) is near Tunis’ residential area and has 344 rooms with a view over the Belvédère Park;
• Golden Tulip Sfax (Tunisia) is a modern 9-floor building in downtown Sfax and has 130 rooms with private balconies and city and sea views;
• Tulip Inn Lucknow (India) is a modern hotel a few minutes from Hazratganj, Lucknow’s business district;
• Kyriad Lyon-Est Bron Eurexpo (France) has 50 rooms and was recently renovated to provide first-class services in contemporary style;
• Première Classe Perpignan Nord Rivesaltes (France) is Première Classe’s 226th hotel. Its 54 rooms have been fully refurbished to match the new Première Classe concept.

These new hotels mirror the group’s development strategy, which involves concentrating efforts on high-potential markets such as North Africa and India, and on markets where the alliance already has a solid presence, such as France. The alliance is planning to inaugurate five hotels by the end of December: two Kyriad hotels in France (in Sedan and Poitiers) and three Golden Tulip hotels in Thailand (two in Phuket and one in Pattaya), which will be the chain’s first properties in Thailand.

Commenting on the announcement, Louvre Hotels and Golden Tulip Hospitality Group President Pierre-Frédéric Roulot said; “These new hotels entirely tie in with the bold development strategy that we are rolling out at the Louvre Hotels/Golden Tulip Hospitality Group alliance. The goal is to cement our presence in Europe while venturing out to conquer new expanding or developing areas. We already know that we will be opening 28 new hotels in 2010, adding up to more than 3,000 rooms in 10 locations around the world. By 2011, the alliance is aiming to run 1,250 hotels with more than 100,000 rooms. We know we will be able to do that without any problems, by pushing ahead with and stepping up the strategy we are following today.”