The Ibis chain has opened its first hotel in the Republic, and its parent company Accor is planning further expansion through its other hotel brands.

The new 150-bedroom hotel at Monastery Road, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, is the first of three new Ibis hotels to be opened over the next three weeks. Ibis is one of the international brands operated by the French group Accor, one of the world's largest hotel companies.

Mr Bill O'Connor, operations manager of Ibis Ireland, said Accor is actively looking for sites around the State at present. The company operates one, two, three, four and five-star hotel brands and he said any of these could be introduced to the Republic. However, he said the budget hotel market has the greatest potential for growth here. In general Ibis acquires its own sites for new hotels, but it sometimes acquires existing hotels. Ibis currently has 450 hotels in 25 countries and it will use 800 sales people in its 22 reservation centres around the world to take bookings for the Irish hotels. The other two Ibis hotels are situated at the Headford Road, Co Galway and at Cork's Lee Tunnel Roundabout.

In conjunction with Bord Failte, Ibis says it will feature its Irish hotels in one million brochures and leaflets to be distributed around the world. The acting director general of Bord Failte, Mr Niall Reddy, said hotel groups like Ibis could contribute to extending the tourist season.

Last week the Choice Hotels group announced plans to open between 25 and 30 hotels in Ireland over the next five years and many of these will be competing with Ibis.