Ibis, an international hotel company owned by Accor Hotels, has been ranked the number one hotel brand in Europe in 2013, according to Breaking Travel News.
Ibis operates 1,277 hotels and 121,882 rooms across the continent marking the largest number of rooms in Europe.
"This represents a major move in the rankings, as it positions owning group Accor - already the number one hotel group in Europe - as also having the leading brand in the market with Ibis," MKG Group chief executive Georges Panayotis, said in a statement.
The growth will be partly represented by new property developments. Apart from that, repositioning strategies by Accor to merge and create uniformity in the Ibis product with former brands Etap Hotels and All Seasons will also be part of the growth process.
Ibis' ranking to the top has dropped American brand Best Western to second place in the hotel rankings with 90,738 rooms. Third position went to Accor's other brand Mercure, with a recent launch of five new properties and 57,000 rooms.
"The complete renewal of our Economy supply through the ibis mega brand project, which concerns more than 1,600 hotels in the world, has been implemented by Accor at an unprecedented speed in history of the hospitality industry," President and CEO of Accor Group, Denis Hennequin, said. "It is a response to the evolution of consumer needs and supports our accelerated international development. I am very happy that this first place in the European brand ranking rewards the exceptional mobilization of Accor's staff at every level, as well as of all our franchisees."
While Ibis, Best Western and Mercure have topped with the first three positions in the leading hotel operating groups in Europe, other hotel operators are still in the charts for opening new hotels.
UK brands, Premier Inn and Travelodge, also join the competition for leading hotel operators in Europe with new hotel constructions and openings for the London Olympic Games.
Premier Inn added 5,000 new rooms and total rooms of 50,744 makes it the fourth best European hotel brand.
