TORONTO — AccorHotels’ new hotel brand JO&JOE blends “the best of private-rental, hostel and hotels”, according to the company. Some 50 properties are set to open by 2020 in destinations popular with Millennials, with locations including Paris and Bordeaux (2018) as well as Warsaw, Budapest, Rio and São Paulo.

All JO&JOE properties will offer city-centre locations close to public transport and less than 15 minutes away from the major points of interest.

With its ‘open house’ concept, the brand’s design team says JO&JOE “diversifies the customer journey by welcoming guests as well as locals, who treat JO&JOE venues as an annex of their living room.”

AccorHotels Chairman and CEO Sébastien Bazin said the mission for the JO&JOE team was “break with tradition, forget old habits, be surprising, authentic, unexpected, bring a breath of fresh air to AccorHotels. Do it quickly and do it well. It wasn’t an easy brief to put into practice, particularly when you’re primarily targeting Millennials, who can be very difficult to win over. But with the launch of our new brand, JO&JOE, we have now more than met that challenge.”

Rates start at 25 euros per night and accommodation caters to people travelling alone, in pairs, in groups or as a family. Authentic dining experiences, bars (“central to the JO&JOE social experience”) and collaborative kitchens are hallmarks of the brand, he added.

Other JO&JOE highlights include:

• The ‘Happy House’ where Tripsters (guests) can relax, work, cook or wash their clothes, just like at home.
• ‘Together’, a modular sleeping area that guests share without sacrificing privacy. In addition to spacious beds, private lockers, reading lights and USB ports, guests have access to shared recreation areas and bathrooms.
• ‘Yours’ consists of rooms and apartments for two to five people with a private bathroom and, depending on the format, a kitchen area.
• ‘OOO!’ (Out Of the Ordinary) offers unexpected accommodation for people travelling alone or in groups of up to six people. Different at each JO&JOE venue, these original formats include yurts, hammocks and caravans.

Photos courtesy of AccorHotels: