FRENCH hotel group Accor has said it will invest 300 million euros ($388 million) in fast-growing Turkey to build 50 hotels by 2015.

The company, which has operations in 140 countries and annual turnover of seven billion euros, said in a statement that it would hire 3,500 people for its Turkish hotels.
“Of the 50 hotels, 12 will be completed by 2009 and we are working with Turkey’s leading Akfen Group as strategic partners,” says Accor Turkey spokesman Koray Ozbay. The hotels will be in big cities on or near Turkey’s western coast such as Istanbul, Bursa and Izmir, as well as in emerging industrial hubs in the interior such as Kayseri and Gaziantep.
Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts are a major tourist destination and last year 21 million tourists visited the country. The government hopes to increase the revenues gained from tourism to $36 billion by 2013.
Turkey's economic growth has averaged nearly eight percent over the last four years, helped by IMF loans worth billions of dollars.

New Dubai hotels
Accor has announced two new properties, an Ibis and a Novotel, in Dubai’s Al Barsha area, to be developed at a cost of Dh1 billion ($272.3 million).
The announcements follow a deal with Al Ali Hotels & Resorts, a privately held company launched by the promoters of Al Ali Property Investments, established for the purposes of investing in and owning hotel and resort properties within the UAE.
Both will be situated on the frontline of Sheikh Zayed Road and will open to the public in 2008. The contemporary-styled four-star Novotel hotel rises to 34 storeys, featuring 437 furnished and spacious rooms in addition to 90 serviced apartments, a full range of services including specialty restaurants, all day dining, bar, six meeting rooms, a business centre and a ballroom. The new, six-storey three-star Ibis Barsha is designed to meet the needs and expectations of a broad spectrum of cost-conscious customers and will host 480 rooms.
Christophe Landais, managing director for Accor Middle East says, “The domestic and intra-regional travel markets are untapped at the present time. This will be undoubtedly the strongest growing market over the next five years, and there is the additional benefit of this market sector being less susceptible to world events and economic fluctuations,” says Christophe Landais, managing director for Accor Middle East. “In the region, the economy sector of the hotel market is largely dominated by individual hotels that may offer variable standards and lack the consistency of service and facilities that travellers expect from a global brand.”
Accor will open a SuiteHotel at the Mall of the Emirates in 2008.