With an unusual positioning, Boutique Hôtels Collection operates in a high-end segment, selecting intimate, historic properties, each with around 30 rooms, which are enhanced with additional services such as gourmet dining and spa and wellness offerings. The company’s business model involves renovating unique properties, using interior design concepts inspired by the property’s history and the people who once lived there, and adding in unique, regional touches, both to the general atmosphere and to the cuisine served, with chefs highlighting local flavours and products.
The Bordeaux-based company fills a niche in the market and currently offers around 130 rooms and suites, all in five-star hotels concentrated on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts:
- Le Boutique Hôtel, located on Rue de Lafaurie-Monbadon, in the historic centre of Bordeaux, with its 18th century facade;
- Le Palais Gallien, on Rue de l’Abbé de l’Épée in Bordeaux, with its remarkable architecture offering privacy and discretion;
- L’Hôtel des Vagues, on Boulevard de l’Océan in Arcachon, currently under renovation and set to open in spring 2023;
- Le Grand Large in Dolus-d’Oléron, built on a sand dune by a student of L Corbusier in 1965. This remarkable, historic property is being given a new lease of life as it’s transformed into a five-star hotel;
- La Villa Mauresque in Saint-Raphaël, designed by architect Pierre Chapoulart in an Orientalist style, located in a private, leafy setting halfway between La Croisette boulevard in Cannes and the Place des Lices in Saint-Tropez.
Concerned about the environmental impact of the hotel business, Boutique Hôtels Collection has obtained the Clé Verte certification for several of its properties, focussing on energy autonomy and rational management of fresh water, as well as reuse of waste water in gardens.
In addition, the company’s duo of leaders, Christophe San José, founder and Chairman of Atlas Group, and Bastien Deschamps, CEO of Boutique Hôtels Collection, realising the need to respond to the shortage of qualified workers, are diversifying their business by adding training. A high-end hotel school is being built in the hills of Saint-Raphaël and is set to open in September 2024 in partnership with the École Hôtelière de Lausanne. The new school aims to train 350 students a year for supervisory positions in the hospitality industry.
“Our hotel group is entering a major growth phase and expects to create 600 jobs and implement a significant investment programme, to reach € 50 million in turnover within the next seven years. While up to this point we have been self-funded, we needed to bring a trusted financial partner into the shareholder base to strengthen our positions and confidently enter this new phase of growth,” explain Christophe San José and Bastien Deschamps.
The company is also continuing to expand its business in southwestern France. Following the acquisition of one of the nine “Imperial Farms” built in the mid-19th century by Napoleon III in Solférino, and which Christophe San José helped get registered as a historical site, the hotel group plans to transform the historic farm into an eco-resort with 25 rooms, treehouses, and cabins on stilts. The hotel complex, which will be energy autonomous thanks to solar panels, will produce fruits, vegetables, and poultry on site to be used in the resort’s restaurant. Work is set to begin on the property in January 2023.
“We were won over by the dynamism and professionalism of this regional company led by a pair of agile managers who are attentive to market trends. By investing in unusual sites while protecting cultural heritage and the environment, Boutique Hôtels Collection offers an original business model targeting a clientele looking for authentic places steeped in history,” adds Frédérique Bousseau, Director of Equity Investments at Crédit Mutuel Equity.
- Investors
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- Frédérique Bousseau, Director of Equity Investments
- Eve Basse Cathalinat, Executive Director
- Investor Experts
- Naeva Lauga
- • Head Lawyer
- Deloitte société d’Avocats
- Boutique Hôtels Collection Group
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- Christophe San José,
- Bastien Deschamps
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