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Q&A: Orient Express chief executive Gilda Perez-Alvarado

“How new assets and trade support are driving a new era for this iconic travel brand”

InterviewsDec 5, 2025by Erica Rich

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Set to span trains, yachts and luxury hotels, one of the world’s most iconic travel brands is in the midst of a stunning revival. Nearly two years after taking up the baton of chief executive, Aspire sits down with the woman leading the charge: Gilda Perez-Alvarado.

Q. Tell us about your role and your background prior to joining Orient Express.

I joined Accor in October 2023 as chief strategy officer. In January 2024, in addition to that role, I was also appointed as chief executive of Orient Express. This is one of the most strategic projects that Accor has embarked on. Orient Express is really a human story and there are thousands of people [involved in the project]. In terms of my background, I’ve been in hospitality my entire life. When I was little, my mother worked in a hotel and my grandmother owned a hotel. I went to hotel school. Prior to coming to Accor, I was at JLL Hotels & Hospitality for 19 years. When I left, I was global chief executive of the hospitality division.

Q. Orient Express is a hugely historic name. Tell us about the transformation of this brand into the multi-faceted travel company that is being crafted today.

It’s a very ambitious undertaking and we have to [approach it] with a very humble point of view. At the end of the day, we are custodians of one of the most celebrated brands and names in history. We are all very privileged to be a part of Orient Express for a finite period of time in its very long history. As of 2025, the brand has been around for 142 years and our job is to make sure that everything that we’re doing right now will enable it to carry on for many, many decades down the road.

We have to make sure that we’re abiding by the brand’s fundamental truths, while also innovating and being thoughtful enough to carry the legacy forward. Since [its inception in] 1883, there’s been hundreds of thousands of people working on it, but there’s really only one name that matters, and it’s Orient Express. That’s the power of this brand.

In terms of what we’re doing right now, obviously, it’s quite ambitious. Orient Express is all about travel and connecting people. What’s so beautiful about the assets that we’ve delivered so far - and what’s in the pipeline: the hotels, the trains, the yachts - is that, on their own, they’re all extraordinary, but together, they’re even more extraordinary.

La Dolce Vita Orient Express

Q. The first assets under the new Orient Express launched in 2025 - La Dolce Vita Orient Express train and Orient Express La Minerva Hotel in Rome. Tell us a bit about those, what the interest has been and how they are performing.

Minerva is a palace from the 1600s. It’s been part of Roman society for centuries - from a social gathering point of view, it is extremely important, and its location is superb. What has been so amazing about it is to see how we’re reinventing it. Imagine the responsibility of bringing something that is so established and ingrained in Roman society, and giving it this new life. For us, we need to make sure that we’re satisfying the Romans, because this is their city. It has been very well received and we’re extremely excited. We’ve opened it in stages, and that peeling of the layers has been wonderful.

The train is a celebration of Italy. It’s la dolce vita. It celebrates a very happy time period - a very abundant, flamboyant, almost loud time period. And so when our guests are going [to Italy], they want to be delighted. The train has also been extremely well received, both among transient guests and those taking it for private hire for birthdays and other celebrations. La Dolce Vita is almost like a cruising train, so the experiences on board are just as important as the experiences off board that we’re curating. It’s money-can’t-buy experiences for people who’ve been to Italy many, many times before. That has worked out really well.

Q. What else is coming up?

In the spring of next year, we have the Orient Express Venezia opening. It’s an amazing palace in Venice, dating back to the 1400s, which has been restored and renovated. The amount of work and studies that have gone into it is just extraordinary.

Then we have our yachts. Orient Express Corinthian will be in the water in the summer of next year and we’re beyond excited. [The inaugural season] is going to be in the Mediterranean and in the wintertime, it’s going to sail in the Caribbean. This beautiful yacht is an engineering marvel that celebrates the art deco movement of 100 years ago, and what it’s done for us is open our ability to connect assets that are now in different continents, because we can connect them by water. So we have the hotels, the trains, and we have the yachts, and that is fantastic. The ship is being worked on at Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire in northern France, and it’s amazing the work that has gone on there.

Q. Are there more assets to come?

We’re definitely hoping to add more assets. We’ll have our second yacht, Orient Express Olympian, coming up in 2027 - a sister ship to Orient Express Corinthian that is already underway. They’re very similar - we’re saying fraternal twins. And then there’ll be our second train, L’Orient Express, which is the restoration of several historic Orient Express carriages dating back to the 1920s. It’s not just another ode to the art deco [era]; this is to the nth degree of luxury as well. I’m working with names and brands and designers who were part of the original Orient Express and the fact that they’re working together with our teams is just extraordinary.

Orient Express La Minerva

Q. What has been the reception so far of these launches among the travel trade?

It’s been wonderful. The way we see the travel advisory community is one of partnership. They’re telling us: ‘This is how guests would like to experience Orient Express, this is the expectation, these are the trends that we’re seeing, this is where people want to go.’ So we have a very healthy advisory board. I think it’s really important for us to listen. They trust us with those relationships so we have to deliver.

Q. How you are educating agents on the brand and supporting them to sell the product?

Immersive events where we can spend time with each other and familiarisation trips are very important. [Agents] have to come and experience the asset. We’ve had some fam trips already. The travel advisory community has been with us since inception when it was still a dream. Now the dream is a reality and they are crucial. They know their guests and their clients so well and they’re so gracious in terms of feedback and support. The market is very competitive across all industries, so they’re keeping us honest and making sure that we’re not operating in an echo chamber.

Orient Express Corinthian

Q. How important is the UK market to Orient Express?

It’s to no surprise that the Anglo market is our biggest market. The United States and the United Kingdom make up the majority [of our sales] across the portfolio. The greatest outbound travel market for the Brits is Europe so obviously we’ve been very well received so far. The UK market understands and is familiar with train travel. They’re avid consumers and connoisseurs of trains, so it’s this cultural element, this discovery and exploration aspect, that is so ingrained in the British culture that resonates very well with us. And obviously the US traveller is the largest source market worldwide. They have a lot of choice and we have formidable competitors, which is great - competition is great for the market - but they love Europe and they love a heritage train.

Q. Sustainability is a key focus for Orient Express. Tell us a bit about that and why that’s such a driving force for the brand.

Sustainability is part of our purpose at Accor - something that is taken extremely seriously. From an Orient Express point of view, obviously, we’re a heritage brand; our job is to make sure that endures. It needs to be a sustainable business practice. We need to do the right thing. When you’re talking about sustainability, at the end of the day, you’re doing it for the long term. It’s not for yourself but for future generations because it’s the right thing to do from a [longevity] point of view. So by default, that is deeply ingrained in Orient Express.

The fact that we are restoring, renovating and repurposing assets - on both trains – is sustainable. With the hotels that we have opened, we’ve renovated them, improved them, brought them up to the latest safety standards - we are giving them a new life.

On the yacht, it is a new-build, and we’re using the latest technology to be more thoughtful around fuel, so we’re powered by wind and liquefied natural gas. We’re also equipped with marine life identification systems to make sure that we are being respectful of what’s swimming underneath us and we don’t cause any damage.

Another important element is the craftsmanship and artisanship that goes behind Orient Express. [We are utilising] crafts that will go into oblivion if we don’t work with them. So the fact that on the yachts, on the trains, in the hotels, we are working with people who still have that skillset that is slowly disappearing, and they know how to restore things of hundreds of years ago, [is incredible].