France-based global hotel brand Accor has joined forces with French luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton to speed up Accor's relaunch of the Orient Express brand.
The Orient Express began train service in 1883 as the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. In 2017, Accor acquired 50% of the Orient Express brand and its naming rights from French rail company Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, or SNCF. Accor is relaunching the high-end train service — with the first trips scheduled for 2025 — and expanding the Orient Express brand to include luxury yachts and hotel openings. Right now, Accor has said it plans three hotels under the Orient Express brand to open by 2025, two trains and one yacht.
As part of this new partnership, LVMH “will be joining forces with Accor through a strategic investment in the Orient Express brand, in the company that will operate the future hotels and trains, and in the entity that will own the two sailing ships,” according to a news release. The announcement from Accor added that the two companies are searching for a third company to partner with in the brand revival.
For now, both Accor and LVMH are keeping the details and strategy of the investment partnerships under wraps. No capital allocation estimate was specified in the Orient Express announcement.
This agreement brings some of the Orient Express threads, or lines, back together, but the two companies involved are fully independent of one another.
LVMH, famous for lifestyle retail, bought the Belmond hotel brand and portfolio in December 2018 for $2.6 billion. Until 2014, Belmond was known as Orient-Express Hotels.
Today, Belmond owns the famed Venice Simplon-Orient-Express luxury train that travels between London and Venice. It also operates five other luxury train experiences around the globe, including the British Pullman, a Belmond Train, and the Belmond Andean Explorer that travels between the Peruvian cities of Cusco and Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Belmond operates 32 luxury hotels around the world and a luxury riverboat in France, along with safari lodges and restaurants.
LVMH also owns the Cheval Blanc hotel brand and hotels.
It is unclear whether this deal will result in any rebranding of existing trains or lodgings.
Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, and Sébastien Bazin, chairman and CEO of Accor, said in the news release they are excited about the deal.
“Orient Express epitomizes the art of refined living and the audacity that drives each of our [firms]. … Each of our groups will bring the best of its expertise to take Orient Express to the pinnacle of the art of hospitality,” Arnault said.
“With LVMH today, we are opening a new chapter in this exciting journey, with the ambition of exploring new horizons and embodying the audacity and creative passion that drive our groups. We’re delighted to enlist LVMH’s rare expertise to continue pushing further the frontiers of this legend and bringing its embodiment to life in an ever more singular way,” Bazin added.
Accor is also developing the first Orient Express sailing ship, which is due to set sail in 2026, and it is developing hotels in Rome and Venice that will be an integral part of its rail offering.