Louvre Hotels Group has signed a franchise agreement with Unique Hotels for a new property on Poland’s Baltic coast, marking the brand’s first entry into Gdańsk. The Golden Tulip Gdańsk Old Town, a 330-room hotel on the revitalised Granary Island, is scheduled to open in July 2027.
The signing, announced on 27 March 2026, deepens the French group’s long-standing commitment to Poland. Louvre Hotels Group has been active in the Polish market for 25 years and currently operates around 30 hotels across the country under brands including Campanile, Kyriad and Golden Tulip. Gdańsk represents the next logical step in a deliberate strategy of filling premium gaps in high-footfall Polish cities.
A city whose numbers demand attention
Gdańsk is not simply a heritage destination. The city welcomed 2.9 million tourists in 2025, making it the third most visited destination in Poland, and demand continues to grow. According to Poland’s central statistical office, GUS, the country recorded nearly 59 million tourist trips last year, including 15.2 million visits from international travellers.
That volume puts sustained pressure on the upper-midscale and premium hotel supply, precisely the segment where Golden Tulip operates. For an operator choosing its next development market, the fundamentals here are hard to argue with.
Location at the heart of a neighbourhood in transition
The hotel’s site is as significant as the city itself. The Golden Tulip Gdańsk Old Town will be located on Granary Island (Wyspa Spichrzow), directly on the banks of the Motława River, in a district undergoing substantial urban regeneration with new residential, hospitality and dining developments.
The 330 rooms will include kitchenettes and spacious two-room apartments, many offering direct views across the old town and the historic waterfront. That proposition, combining space, flexibility and an address within walking distance of Gdańsk’s most photographed streetscapes, is well aligned with both the leisure traveller seeking a longer stay and the corporate guest wanting more than a standard hotel room.
A tried-and-tested three-way partnership
This is not the first time these three parties have worked together. Louvre Hotels Group (brand owner), Unique Hotels (operator) and Marvipol Development S.A. (investor) previously collaborated on the Royal Tulip Warsaw Centre, which the group says is performing strongly. That track record matters: franchise agreements built on proven partnerships carry lower execution risk than first-time collaborations, and it signals that all three parties are committed to a longer-term presence in the Polish market.
François Delattre, Vice-President of International Operations Europe at Louvre Hotels Group, said the deal demonstrates the group’s ability to work with experienced local operators and developers to deliver high-performing hotel projects in Poland.
The property and its offer
The hotel will feature the Savoré restaurant and bar concept, a fitness zone, sauna, professional meeting facilities and a car park. The mixed-use programming, designed to serve both business and leisure segments, reflects a wider industry shift away from properties that skew entirely towards one guest type.
Golden Tulip’s model explicitly supports adaptation to local identity, whether through design, cuisine or programming, while maintaining international four-star service standards. The Gdańsk property is likely to draw on the city’s maritime and Hanseatic heritage, though the final concept has not been detailed at this stage.
Strategic context: Poland as a growth market
Poland has emerged as one of the more resilient and dynamic hospitality markets in Central and Eastern Europe. Rising domestic travel, growing inbound tourism from Western Europe and Asia, and sustained infrastructure investment, including continued expansion of Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport, are all underpinning investor confidence.
Louvre Hotels Group’s global portfolio now spans more than 1,500 hotels across 54 countries as part of Jin Jiang International, the second largest hospitality group in the world. Within that context, Central and Eastern Europe represents an underdeveloped opportunity relative to the group’s Western European density. The Gdańsk signing fits a pattern of selective expansion into markets where brand awareness is growing but supply has not yet caught up with demand.
Looking ahead
Eduardo Bosch, CEO of Louvre Hotels Group, described the signing as a reflection of growing international recognition for the Golden Tulip brand, and characterised Gdańsk as one of Europe’s most strategically important markets.
With opening set for summer 2027, there is a window for the Gdańsk hotel market to continue absorbing the post-pandemic surge in coastal and cultural travel. If the Royal Tulip Warsaw Centre is any guide, the partnership structure underpinning this project should translate execution ambition into a property that performs on both sides of the ledger: for the investor and for the brand.
