11/24/2008 14h51
Accor confirms 10 other hotels in the Country for next year
DCI 11/24/2008
Winner of the DCI Prize (
Prêmio DCI) to the Most Admired Companies in 2008, in the segment Hotels & Tourism, the French Accor Hospitality that manages part of the most well-known brands of the international hotels, keeps on with its plan of expansion and it calculates 10 more units in the Country the next year. In the first six months of 2008, the company had already increased its local basis of hotels by 15%. At the same period, Accor registered a business volume of R$ 375 million (US$ 167 million) in Brazil - 23% more than in 2007. "In 2009, we will have another 10 new hotels in Brazil: five from Ibis, four from Mercure and one Novotel", commented Roland de Bonadona, CEO of Accor Hospitality for Latin America, while adding that the undertakings will be divided among the Southeast, North, Northeast and Midwest Regions, amounting to more than 1.3 thousand apartments, generating jobs for more than 600 people. Among the world economic turmoil, in spite of having the investment goals kept, the industry of tourism starts observing with attention the behavior the occupancy rates, one of the major indicators of the behavior of the segment. At Accor, which worked with the goal of 64% of occupancy in 2008, the changes have not been significant so far. "We still haven't closed the numbers for 2008, but we can say we noticed a slight fall in occupancy in October, near 2%, in the upscale segment", revealed Bonadona to DCI. The officer emphasized that in the mid-scale the fall was even less relevant, to the point that in the segment of economic hotels, strong point of Accor in Brazil, the negative variation has practically not existed. The scenario strengthens the strategy of growth of the hotel segment in Brazil, focused on the economic segment, which, according to experts of the sector, has been the less affected one by the financial crisis. In the case of Accor, it is represented by the brands Ibis and Formule 1. Currently, since it has good presence in the capitals, the French corporation is laying its eyes on the average-sized cities.
