Accor's Iran hotels picking up slowly but surely

The announcement from Accor to manage two properties in Iran came towards the end of 2015, and operations have kicked off “positively” according to Christophe Landais who is heading the development of AccorHotels in Iran.

“We soft opened the Ibis and Novotel hotels in January 2016, and we still have some work to be completed. Out of 500, we have about 300 rooms to be completed. We have also the spas for the ladies and one for the men. Yes, it is taking some time, but hopefully within the next few weeks it should be ready,” Landais told Hotelier Middle East exclusively.

“Delays are never expected as such, but especially the spas required a lot of work, which we expected to be slightly delayed but not to this extent... We are about four weeks behind, but it’s not a big deal,” Landais added. 

The Ibis and Novotel in Tehran, have so far reported satisfactory performance. “We are building up, I think the real start of the two hotels was during the Nowruz (Iranian New Year) period, which started from March 21; at the moment we are running at about 40% occupancy for the two hotels."

He added: "The response from the market has been really good. About 80% of the clientele has been coming from abroad, and about 20% is domestic market.”

“Also a good thing is that the international airlines are coming back. On April 17 we received the first crew of Air France, staying with us, as they renewed their route from Paris to Tehran. We are also currently under discussion with British Airways and Alitalia, for their crew to stay at our hotel.”

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