This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts brand. Part of the Mövenpick group of restaurants, ice cream boutiques and wine cellars, the brand’s first hotels opened in Zurich and Regensdorf in Switzerland in 1973.
Since then the chain has grown to 78 properties, with recent openings including Mövenpick Hotel Apartments The Square in the Deira area of Dubai (see online news January 21), Mövenpick Hotel Ankara (see online news September 11, 2012), and Mövenpick Hotel Paris Neuilly.
The last of these saw Mövenpick take over the management of a 300-room hotel on Boulevard Victor Hugo in the French capital in December, with plans to refurbish the property on a floor-by-floor basis throughout this year (lobby pictured below).
Speaking to Business Traveller, John Griffin, Mövenpick Hotels and Resorts' senior vice president brand and marketing, said that the brand would reach 100 properties by 2015, with a roughly equal split of 25 hotels each in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and across leisure and corporate properties.
The group currently does not have a presence in the UK, with Paris being the most westerly European property, and Griffin admitted that “We’d love to have a flagship property in London," but said that it "has to be the right property at the right price”.
He also pointed to other UK cities including York, Manchester and Edinburgh as being locations where he could see Mövenpick hotels in the future. UK travellers vie with the US as the third largest market for Movenpick properties worldwide, after Germany and Saudi Arabia.
Griffin also stressed that the brand currently has no plans for the US, referring to Mövenpick’s cluster strategy of opening in a new region and then adding two or three more hotels in the area.
“To be a good brand for business travellers you have to get the coverage,” said Griffin. The group opened its first Indian property in Bangalore in 2011 (see online news September 7, 2011), and Griffin said that he “would like to see Mövenpick hotels in Mumbai and Delhi”.
Griffin also said that for now Mövenpick’s single brand approach was the best fit for the group, and added that Mövenpick properties were “upscale, with the right level of amenities and quality” – “we’re not trying to be a luxury brand” he added.
This year the chain is set to open new properties in Soma Bay in Egypt, as well as Dubai, Riyadh, Pattaya, Koh Samui and Chiang Mai.
Further ahead the group will add hotels in destinations including Marrakech, Sanya, Colombo, Bangkok, Shanghai, Bali and Bangladesh, with the aim of reaching a portfolio of 100 properties by 2015.
For more information visit moevenpick-hotels.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
