St Ermins to become Accor's first MGallery hotel in London

The 331-bedroom St Ermins hotel will reopen in mid-April within Accor's MGallery portfolio of properties.

It will be the first MGallery hotel in the UK. Accor launched the collection of individual upscale hotels in 2008 and currently has 36 hotels worldwide.

Jon Cummins, chief operating officer of US property company Amerimar Enterprises, which bought St Ermins last year for £65m with London-based Gracemark Investments and Angelo, Gordon & Co, said the hotel would not be branded.

"The hotel will become part of MGallery in the same way that properties are members of Leading Hotels of the World," he said. "What we liked about this agreement is that it gives us the opportunity to tap into the vast group sales and marketing systems of Accor whilst at the same time maintaining the independence of the St Ermins. The hotel will also benefit from some of Accor's procurement agreements."

Jean-Jacques Dessors, chief operating officer of Accor UK and Ireland, said that the launch of MGallery in London underlined Accor's ambitious and aggressive plans to open 300 hotels by 2015 in the UK, as well as increase Accor's upscale offering in London.

"St Ermins will now have access to our distribution network that will maximise guest bookings," he said.

The St Ermins is the first venture in Europe for Amerimar, which owns and operates 15 hotels in the USA including the Hotel George in Washington, Hotel Derek, Houston, and the Hutton Hotel, Nashville.

Cummins said the company would like the opportunity to develop other hotels similar to the St Ermins, where an attractive property in a good location had suffered from a lack of investment and poor management.

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By Janet Harmer

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