History and Expansion
Paul Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson founded Mercure in 1967. The first Mercure hotel was established in 1973 in Saint-Witz, France. Mercure Novotel was taken over in 1975 by Société d'Investissement et d'Exploitation, later the Accor Group.
In 1983, Mercure expanded into Germany. In 1993, Accor acquired a stake in the Hungarian Pannonia hotel chain with 24 hotels. The group also expanded into Poland, Asia, Turkey, and Africa. In 1994, hotels opened in the Caribbean, Guyana and Réunion. In 1995, Mercure established themselves in Spain, Sweden, Egypt, Oman, and Dubai, and opened a hotel in São Paulo, Brazil. In 1996, hotels opened in Berlin, Barcelona, Offenburg, Weimar, San Sebastián, Bari, Israel, Croatia, and Malta. In 1997, hotels opened in Estonia, Togo, Madagascar, Colombia, Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon. In France, Accor acquired 33 Frantour hotels and rebranded them. The group also expanded the brand into the United Kingdom. In 1998, the ten hotels of the Dutch hotel chain Postiljon were acquired.
In 1999, 148 hotels were integrated into the network, including 42 Libertel hotels, 27 hotels in Germany and 27 in Australia. New hotels were opened in Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Read more about this topic: Mercure Hotels
Famous quotes containing the words history and/or expansion:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the same for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)