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French hospitality chain Accor aim to start 12 hotels by this year end

French hospitality chain Accor expects to add 12 properties in India by this year end, taking its total room count to about 7,000 from nearly 5,000 rooms at present, a senior company official said.

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French hospitality chain Accor expects to add 12 properties in India by this year end, taking its total room count to about 7,000 from nearly 5,000 rooms at present, a senior company official said.

The hotel major is also investing $280 million over its new digital strategy, which would include initiatives to improve its customers' database globally.

Nikhil Dhodapkar, regional director sales & marketing – Accor India, said, "We have plans to open around 12 hotels across brands this year."

The group currently has 32 hotels in India across brands such as Novotel, Sofitel, Grand Mercure, Mercure, Formule-1 and Ibis. It will open its high-end international Pullman hotel in India at Delhi Aerocity around July-August this year.

The group will also see a strong supply of inventories across brands this year, with one or two properties under Novotel brand (with one hotel coming up at Delhi Aerocity), one hotel under the Mercure brand in Hyderabad, two Grand Mercure properties in Mysore and Vadodara/ Bangalore and three Ibis hotels in Goa, Kochi and Chennai.

"Moving forward, in 2015, we are cautiously optimistic that there would be a good demand. First two months have been good and all our hotels across segments have done fairly well. Pan-India, our hotels should be doing with a 65% occupancy-level," Dhodapkar said.

He said the company is investing around 225-250 million euro ($280 million) on its new digital technology strategies. "In the last 5-6 months we have come upon new digital strategy and we are able to digitally transform ourselves as we move forward."

The Paris-based company is working towards higher digital presence by improving customer access via mobile devices and revamping its online booking website. The website has already been revamped.

"We have gone away with all our mobile apps and have merged them into one single app, Accorhotels.com. We have our digital strategy launched named as the "Welcome" project, which basically helps us to analyse even before our guests check in and take care of what their needs are. Before check in, a guest can tell us his/her preference and by the time he/she arrives, we are able to provide with whatever is needed. And post check-out, this engagement must continue as well till the time he/she is coming back to us," he said.

The database which will store information about the preferences of guests across brands will be available in all Accor hotels globally. Dhodapkar said that the Welcome project has been initiated in some of Accor hotels globally and the hotel chain wants to run a pilot in India now. The corpus would be spend over five years.

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