As from May 1st 2017, NH Hotel Group will commence management of the Palm Beach Hotel in Marseille, property of SHPB (Société Hôtelière du Palm Beach), under its NH Hotel brand - only to close its doors in October 2017 for a complete refurbishment led by Marseille architects Claire Fatosme et Christian Lefèvre and the architect Teresa Sapey in Madrid. The hotel will reopen under the Group's nhow brand in the second quarter of 2018. With this new property, NH Hotel Group will increase its presence in the French market and especially in Marseille, where the Company will open its first NH Collection hotel also in 2018.

With 150 rooms and 15 meeting rooms, the largest of which can accommodate up to 300 people, the future nhow is located in one of the most beautiful bays in the Mediterranean - the Prado beaches. Close to the Vieux Port, the MUCEM, the Corniche, and the Parc Chanot, the Palm Beach hotel sits facing the Calanques National Park, with an outstanding view over the sea and the Château d'If. These surroundings, together with the quality of the hotel's infrastructure, its unique swimming-pool, its large terrace, its bar and its Mediterranean restaurant, make the Palm Beach Hotel Marseille a destination in itself.

nhow, the most chameleonic brand of NH Hotel Group

Under the nhow brand, the Palm Beach Hotel Marseille will deploy the standards of NH Hotel Group's most chameleonic brand. Taking its inspiration from the most avant-garde cities in the world, nhow hotels are designed by the most creative minds of the moment: Foster + Partners, OMA- founded by Rem Koolhaas, Karim Rashid, Sergei Tchoban and Matteo Thun, among others; nhow is both a hotel and an explosion of inventiveness occupying one single space.

At nhow hotels nothing is pre-established and everything is unexpected. Iconic, inspiring and surprising, from the hotel entrance to the rooms, the lobby, the restaurants, the corridors, the meeting rooms and the creative spaces, the experience is different for every consumer but with a common sense of “wow”.

nhow is already present in Milan (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and is expected to reach 4 additional destinations by 2019 including Marseille (France). In addition to the three hotels already operating within this brand, the Company has three other nhow projects ongoing: nhow Amsterdam RAI, the biggest hotel in The Netherlands with 650 rooms, and developments in Santiago de Chile and London.

Projects in the pipeline in France

In addition to the management contract for the Palm Beach Hotel Marseille, which has been signed for a period of 20 years, NH Hotel Group will continue to increase its presence in France, and especially in Marseille, with the opening of another hotel in the city in 2018. This new hotel will be the first of the Group's upper-upscale brand, NH Collection, in the country.

NH Collection Marseille will have 169 rooms, three meeting rooms, a fitness centre and a wide range of services characteristic of NH Hotel Group. The hotel, which will be located on one of the city's main streets – La rue de La République -  will occupy a building currently under renovation and only 350 metres away from the third largest port in Europe.