“Bangkok was voted as most visited city in the world and this is an opportunity for us to introduce more hotel brands here,” Basset said.
He said the first new chain would be a kind of combination of hotel and residence, but the actual brand name has not been picked yet.
Accor expected to manage the first residence project within the next 12 months. The group is eyeing Bangkok and other major tourist destinations such as Pattaya, Hua Hin, Koh Samui, Phuket, and Chiang Mai for the residence segment.
“Accor will offer this option to new project or existing developers who want to renovate their properties to get into the new segment,” he said.
In Southeast Asia, Accor has introduced this kind property in Hanoi and Manila.
“The residence project will be a mid-scale property, set to serve high-profile buyers as well as investors,” said Basset.
The second new brand will be Mama Shelter – the lifestyle that also focuses on food and beverage – scheduled to open its doors in 2018 in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit area.
The group will soon sign a management contract with a local developer and Thailand will be the first country in Asia to have Mama Shelter. The brand is already well established in Europe.
Accor recently announced a plan to operate its Jo&Joe brand in Bangkok and elsewhere to serve young tourists.
In Thailand, the Accor group currently operates 69 hotels under multi-brands with a total of 16,023 rooms. There are 18 hotels with 4,134 rooms plus 1,000 villas in the pipeline to be opened in the next three years.
Its occupancy rate for hotels in Thailand by September-end was up by three percentage points and the average room rate grew by 2.16 per cent from the same period last year due to strong growth in tourism.
However, the occupancy rate at hotels in Bangkok dropped by 0.2 per cent while the average room rate in Phuket fell by 4.25 per cent due to the decline in arrivals from China.