Accor plans more hotels in Malaysia
1Accor is rapidly expanding its network in Malaysia, with 15 new hotels nationwide in the pipeline by 2016.
The new hotels coming up in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah will provide about 2,600 rooms. By next year, the group?s Malaysian network is expected to more than double to 20 hotels with over 5,000 rooms from the current eight hotels.
Senior vice-president for Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore Gerard Guillouet said the Europe?s leading hotel operator saw Malaysia as one of South-East Asia?s top tourism destinations.
?Malaysia has a lot of potential for us to grow. We are focusing our energy to aggressively develop more hotels in the country across all market segments.
?The mix of hotel segments in the pipeline indicates that we will continue to have a well-balanced network in 2015, with 15% of the hotels being upscale, 40% mid-scale and 45% being economy hotels,? he told?StarBiz.
He said the network would also be geographically balanced, with hotels in strategic business and leisure destinations throughout the country.
Accor?s existing eight hotels in Malaysia are under three of the group?s 11 brands. The three are Pullman, Novotel and ibis Styles hotels. They are Pullman Putrajaya, Pullman Bangsar, Pullman Kuching, Novotel Kota Kinabalu,?Novotel Kuala Lumpur City Centre, ibis?Styles Fraser Perak, ibis Styles Cheras, Kuala Lumpur and ibis Styles Ipoh.
The 513-room Pullman Bangsar opened for business last month.
?We expect to open at least four hotels this year. They include Novotel Melaka (374 rooms), Mercure Kota Kinabalu Eton (103 rooms) and ibis Styles Sandakan Waterfront (135 rooms),? said Guillouet.
According to him, Accor would have 25 hotels in 11 Malaysian cities and towns by 2017 based on committed projects under construction.
He said Accor aimed to be Malaysia?s leading international hotel operator by 2017 from its current ranking of among the top five.
Click 1 to read more.