France

Louvre Hotels is back on the offensive. This major player in the chain hotel sector, with its 1,700 establishments worldwide, including almost a thousand in France, has been keeping a low profile recently, unlike Accor, the undisputed leader in the budget and mid-range hotel sector, or B&B Hotels, which is expanding rapidly. With...

Transavia France will be inaugurating 13 new routes for the 2024 summer season. Flights will be operated from Paris-Orly, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier and Nantes airports. But the increase in capacity will be more marked in the regions, particularly from Marseille. The southern French city will benefit from 5 new destinations...

A few months after making its debut in France, the Spanish company Renfe is continuing to make its mark in France. Launched on the Lyon-Barcelona route on 13 July, and then between Marseille and Madrid almost immediately afterwards, its AVE high-speed trains are now to be extended to Paris. This extension of its services is in line with...

A certain disappointment was palpable in the discussions between the forty or so French, British and European journalists present at Coquelles on 14 December to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Channel Tunnel. They were all hoping for the announcement of the name of at least one rail operator that would be linking London to the Old Continent in the near future. Whether this...

The NH Hotels and NH Collection brands, which you have owned since 2018, are well known to business travellers in Europe. But your Asian group, Minor Hotels, is probably less well known. Could you tell us a little about it? Marion Walsh-Hédouin - This group was created some fifty years ago by Bill Heineke, who is the...

Volotea has just announced the opening of its 20th base in Europe and its 9th in France, in Brest. This base will be operational from April 2024. The airline will base an Airbus A320 aircraft there, with a programme of around twenty destinations, including 13 new routes. Among the new routes, Volotea has already announced new services to Athens,...

The Marriott group continues to weave its web in the EMEA region. The past few months have seen a number of major openings, including its first luxury lodge in Kenya, the JW Marriott Masai Mara, and the lifestyle W hotels in Budapest and Edinburgh, one in a historic building in the heart of the...

The idea was put forward last spring by Valérie Pécresse, President of the Ile-de-France region and of IDF Mobilité: a special fare will apply to travel to Orly airport via the extension of line 14 once it is brought into service in June 2024. The fare will be €11.50 per journey in a...

A new top-of-the-range Parisian city residence: opened at the end of last summer, the Appart'City Collection Paris Gare de Lyon illustrates in many ways the evolution of the French leader in city apartment hotels. Not least because this establishment is, as is often the case, perfectly located for business travellers. Business travellers represent more and more of the...

How did Azureva gradually move into the MICE segment? Bruno Mounier - We are a subsidiary of La Poste, created over 70 years ago. As a result of this heritage, Azureva now operates 43 sites. From its original aim of enabling postal workers to go on holiday, the association has gradually...

Mama Shelter has had a following. Building on the success of this emblematic lifestyle brand over the last fifteen years, which has since been sold to Accor, Serge Trigano has set himself a new challenge with Oh Baby, a new hotel concept at more affordable prices, around a hundred euros a night. A new offspring for the 'Mama', as it were...

Following on from Paris CDG airport last March, Eklo has set up shop near another popular stop-off point for business travellers: Montpellier's Saint-Roch station. Located just opposite the station, five minutes from Place de la Comédie, the new hotel from the business and lifestyle chain...

French skies will be disrupted on Monday 20 November due to a strike notice issued by several air traffic controllers' unions. As a result, the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) has asked airlines to reduce their flight schedules by 25% at Paris-Orly and Toulouse-Blagnac and by 20% at Bordeaux-Mérignac airports...

The necessary modernisation of French air transport will involve a sharp reduction in airline activity in January and February 2024, the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) has announced. This is in fact a necessary technological modernisation of a system that has not changed since the 1970s. A new software l...

Meeting in Paris, the Hilton Group's management team for Continental Europe is delighted to announce its debut in Monte Carlo, a destination that the American hotelier has long had its eye on. By the end of 2023, the Columbus hotel is set to become part of the Curio Collection brand, which now comprises almost 150 boutique hotels worldwide. Offering...

The opening up of French regional lines to competition has also been on the cards since December 2019, fanning the flames of interest from Transdev (a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations), RATP Dev Rail, Régioneo (a joint venture between Getlink and RATP) and Arriva (a subsidiary of DB), all keen to make inroads into the SNCF. In...

The Ministry of Transport, headed by Clément Beaune, confirmed on 26 October at a steering committee meeting organised by the Préfecture du Grand Est: the Metz-Nancy-Dijon-Lyon line will reopen by early 2025, probably when the SNCF winter service is introduced in December 2024. It's a real breath of fresh air...

After Nice and Paris CDG airport, you opened a third hotel in France in Aubervilliers last spring. Are you satisfied with their business? Karim Malak - These openings have been a resounding success, and we're getting up to cruising speed very quickly. The hotel market is doing well, so we've made a big...

Normandy, Brittany, Pays de Loire, Hauts-de-France, Centre-Val de Loire: in these five regions, TER trains will be at a standstill on Thursday 2 November - or even from Wednesday evening until Friday morning. The storm Ciaran is forcing SNCF Réseau to introduce this radical measure: the preventive stoppage of rail traffic. The measure, known as "stop...

At least business travellers will have time to plan their business trips in advance. Caen Airport has just announced that it will be closed from 11 March. The reason for the closure: runway upgrading work to bring the airport into line with European certification, which is due to be completed by the end of...