Leading hospitality group Accor Middle East has announced plans to open 23 new hotels offering 5,891 rooms across the region in the next three years with key focus on the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Announcing the record expansion, Accor said out of this, 12 will be located in the UAE and four in Saudi Arabia as both these countries are seen to drive positive growth for the group's development plans. 

The others will be spread across the region with three in Syria, two in Qatar, one in Egypt and one in Bahrain, it added.

Christophe Landais, the managing director of Accor ME said, 'We have experienced positive growth in the region's tourism and hospitality industry in 2011.'

'With 2012 upon us, we plan to leverage the breadth of the Accor brands to support the growth in the tourism sector. We are keen to offer tourists and business travellers alike a wider choice of hotels to stay in when they visit this region,' he added.

In the UAE, Accor aims to operate seven new hotels this year -currently it manages15 properties.

'With leisure arrivals in Saudi predicted to be 22.7 million visitors by 2014 and business arrivals 7.5 million, Accor is right on track in expanding its ibis network with the first ibis hotel in Riyadh and the first ibis in Yanbu, both opening this year,'  Landais noted.

Currently Accor manages 11 hotels in the Kingdom and four more will follow in the next two years.

'Focusing on our core strength, we plan to open a total of nine new hotels representing 2,630 rooms in 2012 that will reflect our full range of branded hotels from our leading economy hotel ibis, and mid-market hotel brand Novotel, to our upscale hotel Pullman which will all make their markin the Middle East hospitality industry,' he added.

Accor has unveiled its economy brand dynamisation strategy to revolutionise its economy brand portfolio around the ibis brand.

Globally, the portfolio will now consist of: ibis, which remains ibis, all seasons, which will become ‘ibis styles’ Etap Hotel, which will become ‘ibis budget’.

'Accor believes that the implementation of this new segmentation – which will be completed worldwide by early 2013 – will increase the clarity, consistency and strength of the three economy brands and will enable Accor to achieve critical mass in several markets,' added Landais.

The group will sustain Pullman brand's positioning when it opens the 354-room Pullman Dubai Jumeirah Lake later this year, after the successful launch of its first upscale hotel in the region, Pullman Dubai Mall of the Emirates in September 2010.

A new hotel brand, Adagio, will also join Accor's portfolio of hotels with the launch of the first Adagio City Aparthotel which will open in Abu Dhabi in late 2012, he added.-TradeArabia News Service