Ibis Shanghai, the first hotel of Accor French hotel management corporation in the commercial metropolis of China, will be located in the center of Lujiazui international financial zone.

Construction on the hotel, which will consist of 300 rooms, will begin in May and will be completed in early 2008.

Accor has also built an Ibis hotel in Qingdao, a coastal tourism city in east China's Shandong Province, which will be open by the end of this month. More Ibis hotels will be built in a dozen of major cities across China including Beijing, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Fuzhou and Wuhan.

As the first international hotel management company entered China in 1985, Accor has put more attention on developing middle and high-class hotels, operating 14 Sofitel hotels, eight Novotel hotels and two Mercure hotels across the country.

With booming business from its tourism market, economical hotels, such as Ibis hotels, have become the new focus of Accor's hotel marketing strategy in China. Aimed at shaping a comprehensive hotel chain system in China, Accor is to open 43 hotels in China, among which 24 will be Ibis.

Accor has built hotel chains in more than 140 countries worldwide, with a total of 168,000 employees and an annual revenue of 7 billion Euros.

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2006)