Hospitality major Accor Hotels expands in Chennai

Jean Michel Casse, COO - India and S Asia, who was here on Friday for the event, said the 342-room property – 153 room Novotel and 189 room ibis Chennai OMR – reflected the ability of the hospitality chain to strike relevant partnerships in key markets such as Chennai. 

Apart from the huge supply, occupancy too was better than it had been in the last few years. “Demand is better than supply but the ARR or the average room rate of Rs 5,000 is not enough,” he said, lamenting that ARR had to go up by 20 to 25 per cent for the hospitality players to sustain their businesses. But, he expressed happiness that the bar licensing issues were getting resolved, which would boost the sector in general.

Meanwhile, the group is already densifying its network as two more hotels are coming up here by the year-end. This would take the group’s total number of properties to 55, brands to ten and 10,000 rooms for use. As part of its efforts to expand its footprints in the country, the hospitality major is keen on taking up management of existing hotels that are running under different brands besides adding new properties. “We are seeing occupancy levels over 65 per cent in India and of the 800 hotels in the Asia Pacific region, India generates 25 per cent of the global revenues,” Casse said.

The Chennai combo hotel will be the third in India for AccorHotels after Delhi (Pullman-Novotel) and Bengaluru (Novotel-ibis).