Accor to Launch Yacht-Style Cruise Brand Orient Express Silenseas

The Marriott-controlled ultra-luxury superyacht brand The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection would like to raise as much as $400 million to add two superyachts to its current three, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.

Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, said on Tuesday that Omer Acar will head its brands Raffles & Orient Express as of March 1. Acar will join Accor’s other brand CEOs in its luxury and lifestyle group (Fairmont, Sofitel & MGallery, and Ennismore) — all of whom report directly to group CEO Sébastian Bazin.

Airbnb executives have talked a lot about how they have reduced their spending on performance marketing (think: buying ads in Google search results) to focus on brand marketing (think: subway posters advertising the company’s new “OMG” category of properties). So how much do they spend on brand and how much on performance?

Kerzner International has unveiled its new brand Siro, a set of fitness-themed lifestyle hotels. The developer said on Wednesday that it has slated to open its first property in a tower in One Za’abeel, a luxury community in Dubai, U.A.E., in the last months of 2023.

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants is a boutique hotel brand created by Bill Kimpton in 1981 in San Francisco. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) bought it for $430 million in 2014 and has been scaling it up as a mid-priced lifestyle brand.

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Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, will reveal on Thursday a new global “soft” brand, Handwritten Collection, featuring so-called lifestyle hotels. These mid-priced properties have funky furniture and buzzy restaurants and bars but don’t offer the full services of a premium boutique.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 25. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Accor put in place the pieces for a corporate re-organization this month. But this re-org is one of a few over the roughly decade-long reign of Sébastien Bazin, chairman and CEO. The latest changes have prompted some eye-rolling from analysts at investment banks and executives at competitor hotel giants.

Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano on Tuesday toured the , the first sailing vessel in The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. Capuano said in an interview that yacht-style cruises on the 623-foot — which hosts fewer than 300 people at a time — represent an important pillar of growth for the world’s largest hotel operator by pulling the levers of loyalty and luxury.

Executives at Accor, Europe’s largest hotel operator with about 5,445 hotels worldwide, envy how U.S.-based hotel operators have consolidated North America. But they argue they have a better sense of the ground game for hospitality in the rest of the world.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, March 14. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.