France

Hoteliers are making a sustained commitment to the green label. Almost by force of market forces, as pledging eco-responsibility to their customers is becoming not just a means of distinguishing themselves, but a prerequisite, particularly in the eyes of companies committed to CSR. The 2024 list of winners of the Clef Verte label,...

According to an article in Le Parisien, which obtained access to an internal SNCF document, the railway company is considering "optimising TGV services" on its loss-making routes. This could ultimately result, at worst, in the closure of certain lines, and at best in a reduction in the number of daily trains....

France's major airports continued to show signs of recovery in 2023, according to the first figures published by the various hub managers in France. However, some airports continued to post lower performances than in 2019. This is the case at Paris-CDG, Lyon and Toulouse. But others, such as Beauvais, Marseille, Nice and...

Good news has been raining down on Dunkirk like herrings at carnival time in recent months. The city of Jean Bart has seen billions of euros worth of investment projects from Verkor, Taiwan's Prologium, Dorano and XTC. With the "Dunkerque l'Energie créative" programme, France's 3rd-largest port is committed to...

Bad weather has taken its toll on Brest airport. The control tower at the airport, the second largest in Brittany with over 900,000 passengers expected by 2023, was struck by lightning on 30 December during storm Geraldine. Since Sunday, air traffic has been...

The battle had been going on for several months. Authorised to operate a daily flight to Sydney, Turkish Airlines wanted to be able to increase the number of frequencies to Australia. The airline plans to launch flights to Australia in 2024. In the end, Transport Minister Catherine King put her signature to a new agreement...

The IHG group is gradually approaching the 70 hotel mark in France. This expansion is taking place through a more diversified offering, with the arrival of new brands such as the luxury and lifestyle brand Kimpton, which will appear in Paris in 2021, and now Staybridge Suites. This predominantly long-stay brand has just made its debut on the...

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...