IHG Hotels & Resorts has signed a multi-property development agreement with French hotel operator Grape Hospitality to manage five hotels — three in Spain and one each in France and Italy.
Grape Hospitality operates and owns more than 100 hotels in eight European countries.
All conversions, the hotels are the 193-room Voco Madrid Centre Retiro, 168-room Crowne Plaza Madrid Centre Retiro, 160-room Hotel Indigo Florence, 100-room Hotel Indigo Bordeaux and 189-room Hotel Indigo Barcelona.
The deal grows IHG's European portfolio of Hotel Indigo assets to 40 — 19 are in the pipeline — its number of Voco assets to 15 and its tally of Crowne Plaza assets to 88.
The Florence, Italy, hotel will open by the end of this year. The Madrid hotel, a debut for Voco in Spain, is due to open in April 2024, as will the Hotel Indigo Barcelona and Crowne Plaza Madrid Centre Retiro — the second hotels of their respective flags in those two cities.
The Hotel Indigo Bordeaux is due to open in May 2023.
Frederic Josenhans, Grape’s chairman and the former managing director of Accor’s Mercure and Novotel flags, said “[we continue our] development in Europe with the acquisition of premium assets.”
In 2016, Grape acquired 85 economy and midscale hotels from Accor in a deal valued at 504 million euros ($486 million).
Those 85 hotels included one Pullman, three Ibis Styles, 13 Mercure, 14 Ibis Budget, 19 Novotel and 35 Ibis properties, the majority of which are in France.
Accor owns 30% of Grape Hospitality while the bulk of shares are owned by private-equity firm Eurazeo.