This book takes architects and designers on a worldwide journey to discover the most stylish and appealing spots, from an urban getaway in Europe to a resort on a South Pacific island, providing a serene ...
Accor’s Reimaging, Part 2: JOI-Design’s Peter Joehnk details how some tired Novotels were repositioned under the Mercure flag.
By Peter Joehnk
Both Novotel and Mercure are four-star brands by Accor, yet their brand values as expressed in their interior environment are completely different. Novotel is a good quality product but one that is very much systemized and standardized. While there are some differences in the public areas, guests familiar with a Novotel in, say, Holland, would immediately recognize the interiors of a Novotel in the U.K. Mercure, on the other hand, stands for individuality in its architecture and interiors. That's fine, especially now when travelers expect customization. But there is clearly a risk of diluting the brand if the design is not carefully managed to express common values within those individualized designs.
That's exactly what had happened in Germany. The Mercure flag flew over a range of hotels that weren't suited to be either a Novotel or Accor's five-star brand, Sofitel. Many were privately owned, some were owned by Accor and some were franchises. It was Accor's acquisition of Dorint Hotels in 2007 that served as the catalyst for redefining Mercure, since it gave Accor a large portfolio to reflag. Initially, Accor commissioned us to rebrand and refurbish 15 Novotels, converting them to Mercures. Later additions of some franchise hotels, brought the total to 20 representing roughly 2,000 keys.
The brief from Accor was to create hotels with their own character and local flavour but all within the vernacular of modern business hotels. Budget was the biggest challenge. Accor had allocated what was essentially a soft refurbishment budget - hardly sufficient for the transformation that some of the hotels required.
COMMON ELEMENTS, CUSTOM ACCENTS
Getting the most impact for this budget started with treating the public spaces totally differently from the guest rooms. The design of the latter was standardized across all the projects to provide purchasing scale and negotiate the best possible prices from suppliers. By contrast, individual character was to be the design driver in the public areas. Here, the inspiration for the different themes would be local -- but not with pastiche references. Instead, we wanted to tell a story with a local connection.