Accor is bringing three Novotel hotels to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group has partnered with Compagnie Hôtelière et Immobilière du Congo, owned by DRC conglomerates, to open Novotel properties in the capital, Kinshasa, and its two major mining centers in the south, Lubumbashi and Kolwezi. The hotels will bring a total of 337 guestrooms to sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country.
“With Africa tipped as the next global market and DRC one of the continent’s fastest-expanding economies with an affluent middle class, the time is right to introduce our flagship midscale lifestyle brand in three major growth markets,” Mark Willis, CEO, Accor Middle East & Africa, said in a statement.
Farhan Charaniya, head of development for CHIC, said that the company is both dedicated to the hospitality industry and committed to making a contribution to the socioeconomic development of the country. Due to the country’s natural resources, he said, the DRC “is going to realize a considerable increase in business tourism. CHIC is focused on developing quality hotels across the country in support of DRC’s growth potential and we are delighted to be partnering with Accor in achieving this objective.”
The capital, Kinshasa, is a center for international corporations, institutions, government offices, embassies and nongovernmental organization headquarters, and the 115-room Novotel Kinshasa, due for completion in December 2020, will be located close to all of them on Avenue Bandundu in the city center.
In Lubumbashi, DRC’s second largest city and its mining capital, the 120-room Novotel Lubumbashi is under construction with a planned opening date of December 2021.
Also in the south of DRC and the capital of Lualaba Province, Kolwezi is a major mining center for copper and cobalt. The 102-room Novotel Kolwezi is due for completion in December 2022.
Accor already operates two properties under the Pullman brand in DRC: the Pullman Kinshasa Grand Hotel and the Pullman Grand Karavia in Lubumbashi.
The triple Novotel signing builds on the momentum of the brand in other areas of sub-Saharan Africa, a focal point of Accor’s development strategy, with the group recently signing a deal to manage the 160-room Novotel Victoria Island Lagos in Nigeria.
More than 3,942 rooms are in the pipeline for this region of Africa across Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, Senegal, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Zambia.
Accor currently operates a total of 25,826 rooms in 164 hotels across 22 countries in Africa and has 13,642 more rooms across 61 properties signed or under development.