• On the last 12 months, luxury hotels in Paris achieved a +14.8% increase in RevPAR.

• This great performance is the result of strong growth of the luxury guests segment and highlights a shortage of inventory on this market

• Ideally located, the ambitious Fouquet�s Barrière banks on making his way among the 6 Parisian "Palaces"

The Fouquet�s Barrière enters a market that is in a strong growth period. The occupancy rate at Parisian Palaces is in fine shape, rising 8 points over the last 12 months while RevPAR progression nearly achieved a +15% evolution. This performance largely surpasses the upscale market results that show +8.7% growth in the RevPAR for the same period in Paris. Occupancy having slowed down after September 11 and during the Iraq war, the luxury market in Paris is now recording a marked revival as occupancy rate and average daily rate increase simultaneously. Since the recovery began in 2004, foreign clientele have made a come back.

Regarding to its performance, Paris has no cause to be jealous of its major international rivals such as New York or London. The city uses its central location in Western Europe and its excellent international brand image to the fullest.

Room for more on Paris�s luxury hotel market

The excellent results of this market highlight a strong demand for luxury services. In the last 12 months MKG Consulting never recorded any real slump in occupancy level. In fact, the luxury hotel supply in Paris represents a little bit more than 1,000 rooms in 6 hotels, while New York or London are graced with a much larger room supply in the same market. The Parisian real-estate market characteristics, the impossibility of building vertically, added to the restrictions imposed for converting or renovating historical buildings explain the city�s limited supply on this market.

Georges Panayotis, CEO and founder of MKG Consulting, considers the Parisian luxury hotel market can easily support the arrival of the two palaces scheduled to open soon: Fouquet�s Barrière and the Shangri-La, which is to open in 2008.

Methodology
Founded in 1985 by Georges Panayotis, MKG Consulting is the European leader in consulting services in the hotel, tourism and catering sector and has the largest hotel database in the world outside the United States, with good representation of all hotel segments. The monthly program of the MKG Consulting Database is based on a sample of 10,000 corporate chain hotels, accounting for 1,000,000 rooms (the sample increased by 10% in 2005).

Since September 2004, the MKG Consulting Database has proposed a program that enables activity indicators to be monitored hotel by hotel on a daily basis. This program includes 1,500 hotels and 125,000 rooms in France, making it the most developed program charting daily hotel results in Europe.