Accor UK & Ireland has strengthened its franchise development team with the appointment of Jason Wischhoff as franchise and management development director.

He will be joined by Wolfgang Gold, who has taken on the role of franchise development manager, both for the UK and Ireland.

The appointments come at a time when Accor has significantly increased its franchised hotels in the UK hotel portfolio and recently signed four new hotels to the now 75-strong Mercure hotel brand.

Wischhoff and Gold have over twenty-five years of franchise experience between them to add to the well-established Accor team.

Jason Wischhoff spent time as a franchise consultant and has great experience working with hoteliers in the UK and Ireland.

Wolfgang Gold has worked as a membership development manager and numerous sales roles including director of sales for a large hospitality group.

Both have joined the Accor development team to attract hoteliers and investors.

Wischhoff explained: “Accor is unique in the hotel industry as it has a variety of brands available for franchise and management, and all these brands can operate in similar areas, capturing different segments of the market.

“Also Accor is a hotelier that runs and manages its own hotels so it brings that depth of experience to its franchisees and partners.”

Accor has an ambitious growth strategy to increase its UK network to 300 hotels by 2015.