Created by Emmanuel Petit, formerly of the Accor group, and sponsored by Paul Dubrule and Gérard Pélisson, co-founders of Accor, the new "eklo hotels" hard budget concept is about to become a reality, with three hotels set to open in 2014: in Le Havre in March, then Le Mans, and another in an unnamed major French city. The eklo hotels concept targets national and international tourists looking for a quality hotel at a low price and offers comfortable and secure rooms at only 24 euro a night. The hotels will be located near city centers, accessible by public transportation, and will offer about a hundred rooms, optimizing space but offering a private bathroom, television, and wifi connection. "The goal is to maximally optimize space to cut down on land use, unnecessary wood cutting, transportation costs, and lower the building's energy consumption as much as possible... We have worked on the concept to lower construction costs without harming quality. We are also reducing our overhead as much as possible so our hotels can remain accessible to the greatest amount of people. Our sales price would be even lower if the French norms were a little less restrictive", explained Emmanuel Petit in the columns of Hospitality ON for the first look at the concept. Eklo hotels also focuses on a price policy based on customer needs. Customers will only pay for what they consume: breakfast, television or wifi access, secure parking, towels will be options offered at rates of 1 to 3 euro.
