{"id":73401,"date":"2026-09-03T05:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T05:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/73401\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T05:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T05:26:17","slug":"lvmh-and-accors-orient-express-sets-its-sights-on-new-tech-billionaire-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/73401\/","title":{"rendered":"LVMH and Accor’s Orient Express sets its sights on new tech billionaire class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By
\n
Reuters\n <\/p>\n

\n Published
\n <\/p>\n

June 29, 2026<\/p>\n

\n Shuttling across the French and Italian Riviera<\/a>, Orient Express<\/a>‘s first giant yacht aims to attract a new class of billionaire.<\/p>\n

\"\" Reuters<\/p>\n

Orient Express, now a joint venture between French hotelier Accor and Louis Vuitton<\/a> owner \u2060LVMH<\/a>, set out to revive the 19th century travel brand. Its recently launched yacht is the first of two that will target the ultra-rich, adding to a portfolio of luxury hotels and a yet-to-launch historic art deco train.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Accor, the operational leader of Orient Express, expects a new pool of billionaires produced by the AI \u2060boom will help the venture accelerate \u200cits push into luxury experiences, Accor’s \u2060Chief Executive Sebastien Bazin told Reuters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When you are getting rich, very rich, money hasn’t got the same meaning,” Bazin said. “The only thing that has a meaning is recognition. Have you become someone?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spending on high-end \u200bexperiences is set to \u200bgrow by 9-11% this year, far outpacing the 1-4% growth forecast for personal luxury goods, a Bain<\/a> study published on Thursday showed.<\/p>\n

The trend is boosted by a tech boom in the United States and elsewhere, leading to a larger number of so-called ultra-high net worth individuals using private jets, \u200cyachts and increasingly \u200bflocking to mega-events like Formula One racing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When people are very rich and they have seven homes, and 12 cars, and \u200c17 watches… they still have a bucket \u2060list of things they promised themselves to do before dying. It’s not to have an 18th watch,” Bazin \u200csaid in an interview with Reuters this week.<\/p>\n

Bazin confirmed Accor and luxury giant LVMH have reciprocal options to buy each other out in the coming years, providing the clearest insight yet into a partnership aimed at capturing the booming market for experiences as the luxury goods industry grapples with weak growth for products like handbags, fashions and watches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neither LVMH nor Accor \u200bhave so far disclosed the unit’s operating profit or enterprise value. Orient Express’s high-end assets are estimated to be worth about 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion).<\/p>\n

Should either side decide to exercise the buyout option, an acquisition by \u200bLVMH appears more likely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Accor is under \u200cpressure \u200bfrom shareholders to ramp up returns as its traditional business with hotel chains like Ibis and \u200cNovotel has \u200cbeen flat for years.<\/p>\n

For LVMH, a sprawling luxury behemoth with over 10 times Accor’s sales and a huge war chest for acquisitions, the venture could become a key pillar as consumer trends shift.<\/p>\n

Orient Express’s first giant yacht has so far been banking \u2060on mega-events like the Cannes film festival and Formula One race in Monaco as a playing field for its clients to signal social status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If you’ve been to a Monaco Formula One, if you \u200cwant to go around, you need badges everywhere. Certain people would \u200bhave certain badges,” said Estelle Dinh, a professor at Switzerland-based hospitality school Gilon and industry advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a four-day cruise, suites on deck start at around \u20ac25,000.\u00a0
The vessel heavily features LVMH brands, from a Guerlain<\/a> beauty salon to bottles of Hennessy \u200ccognac prominently displayed in its priciest penthouse suites.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2026 All rights reserved.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Reuters Published June 29, 2026 Shuttling across the French and Italian Riviera, Orient Express‘s first giant yacht…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12700],"tags":[34108,1576,44979,997,36590,2773,2009,4955,12701,19247,27583,44980],"class_list":["post-73401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lvmh","tag-bain","tag-beauty","tag-express","tag-fashion","tag-guerlain","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-luxury","tag-lvmh","tag-moet-hennessy-louis-vuitton","tag-network","tag-professionals","tag-riviera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}