BUCHAREST (Romania), October 2 (SeeNews) – Warsaw-listed hotel group Orbis said on Tuesday that it will open a Mercure hotel in the western Romanian town of Timisoara in the second quarter of 2019, together with its local partner and investor, Paneracons I&I.
The newly built hotel will have 60 rooms and is located in the centre of Timisoara, which is the second largest city in Romania and the European Capital of Culture for 2021, Orbis, the strategic partner of AccorHotels in Eastern Europe, said in a press release.
"With the opening of Mercure Timisoara, in partnership with S.C. Paneracons I&I, we are further developing our hotel portfolio we do offer to our customers across the country, currently with 11 existing hotels from the upscale to the economy segments, and having already 6 hotels in the pipeline for the years to come," Orbis CEO and president, Gilles Clavie, said.
"We are sure that a hotel with a high quality and well-known brand such Mercure will contribute and will sustain the touristic project of our city like European Capital of Culture 2021, and the tourism growth in general," Panera CEO Ionut Iakab said.
Mercure is AccorHotels' midscale hotel brand with 770 properties in 61 countries.
In August, Orbis said that it will open a Mercure hotel in the Romanian town of Sibiu at the beginning of 2019, together with its local partner and investor, Pritax Invest.
Also in August, Orbis said it will open an ibis brand hotel in Romania's capital Bucharest in the first quarter of 2019. Ibis is the economy brand of AccorHotels.
In July, Orbis said that it will open the first hotel of the ibis brand in Timisoara in the fourth quarter of 2020 and signed an agreement for the purchase of Mercure Bucharest Unirii hotel in Romania for 11.35 million euro ($13.2 million).
Orbis comprises 129 hotels and is the sole licensor of all AccorHotels brands in 16 countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. It offers a total of 21,000 rooms.
The hotels operate under the brand names Sofitel, Pullman, M Gallery, Novotel, Mercure, ibis, ibis Styles and ibis budget.
($=0.8608 euro)