French hospitality company Accor is launching six new luxury trains branded as Orient Express, as well as a chain of Orient Express-branded hotels, with both starting in 2023.
The six trains, subtitled La Dolce Vita after the 1960 Fellini film, will operate a number of popular itineraries in various parts of Europe; each of the trains has 12 deluxe cabins, 18 suites, one ‘honor’ suite, lounges and an ‘haute cuisine’ restaurant featuring Italian wines.
The itineraries include trips from Rome to Paris, Istanbul and Split, but most will run to Italian mountain and resort destinations. For stopovers in Rome or for journeys that start or end there, passengers will stay at the first of Accor’s new Orient Express hotels. The historic Hotel Minerva, built in 1620 and a hotel since the 1820s is being converted to the new brand.
If you already thought there were Orient Express trains and hotels running, you can be pardoned the confusion; the Orient Express name and operations have been handed around quite a bit in recent years. Originally owned by Wagon-Lits, it is now owned by France’s SNCF and Accor in a 50% partnership. But that’s just the name, which Accor is now free to use.
There is a ‘Venice Simplon-Orient-Express’ train running as a luxury excursion, using cars refurbished from original Orient Express trains. The train is owned by SNCF and operated and marketed by Belmond, which until 2013 operated Orient Express Hotels as well as the train, and also used the name for river cruising and other operations. In 2013, SNCF canceled its license except for the one train; at that point the hotels and other properties became Belmond.
Accor’s hotel brands number into the dozens. Among the best-known are Ibis, Mercure, Swissotel, Novotel, Sofitel and Fairmont. Over 100 countries, it manages or owns over five thousand hotels.
