“Nice has all the appeal of a capital without the inconveniences,” said the French writer Paul Valery one day. It also has all the renown and infrastructures of a capital. After Paris, Nice is one of the best-known French cities abroad. Because of this it is a real barometer for France’s tourism situation. With 4.5 million visitors each year (for 1.5 billion euros of economic benefits), its hotel supply is, logically, commensurate with such status: 190 properties and more than 10,000 rooms (304 for 13,000 rooms if we look at the agglomeration) representing one third of the supply on the French Riviera. It is France’s number-two hotel supply only after the capital! Nice’s hotel industry is clearly oriented towards the upscale. Whence its glamour and luxury image that is internationally renown thanks to the myth of its Belle Epoque palaces, with the Negresco in the lead. The global supply, on the other hand, is stagnant. “There is not much land left,” reminds Michel Tschann, president of Nice’s hoteliers union and manager of the Splendid hotel. “There is a shortage of available real estate and limited space. We have even seen hotels disappear in recent years.” In the last three years, only three new properties opened. The 80- unit Excellior hotel residence under the Choice Quality Suites brand, the Palais de la Méditerranée, in 2004, a 188- room 4* by the chain Concorde, and the Goldstar Resort & Suites, a residence with fifty suites. And the pipeline is not overflowing: a 4* on the Quai des Etats- Unis, that should be operated by Kempinski, as soon as legal issues with part of the municipality have been resolved, as well as a hotel complex with 250 rooms in all (a Suitehotel + a 3* property) located in the business neighborhood of the...