SNCF, the French transportation company that owns the Orient Express trademark and recently agreed with Orient-Express Hotels to terminate their long-standing hotel license agreement, is taking steps to license its own 5-star hotel company in the coming months.
Frank Bernard, state-owned SNCF’s director for development and CEO of Orient Express, told HOTELS Magazine on Friday that a hotel license deal is likely to be one of several deals it will make in the near term. “Yes, the legendary Orient Express brand is ours,” he said. “We’ve already been licensing high-end luxury companies connected to this ‘Art du Voyage à la Française.’
“And as you’ve probably seen, Orient-Express Hotels has been recently rebranded Belmond Hotels. Orient Express will probably license another 5-star company in the coming months.”
Bernard said he has been very busy these last weeks with the launch of the Parisian exhibition “Il était une fois l’Orient Express,” which will see more than 400,000 visitors expected from April 4 to August 31. He added that at last week’s big furniture design event in Milan, SNCF also presented its train concept.
Indeed, SNCF intends to unveil its new luxury train concept by adopting the name of the mythical railroad line, which connected Paris to Istanbul until 1977. The route is expected to come back to life within five years and initially run between Paris and Vienna, carrying 150 passengers at a time. At the moment, SNCF is working on designs for a number of concept carriages fitted with modern furnishings and fixtures. “In addition to high speed, we need to reintroduce the idea of journeys that takes their time, but also customer-service excellence like with cruise ships,” Bernard recently said.
The train’s relaunch is expected to act as the linchpin to Orient Express’ plan to further develop related products and services. SNCF has already announced the launch of branded mattresses (Cauval), trunks (Moynat) with French luxury goods billionaire Bernard Arnault, as well as perfumes and handbags
HOTELS contacted the Orient-Express Hotels, which is still in the process of rebranding the company as Belmond, and a representative said they are unable to comment on this report.