Projects and priorities
With this comment, Caillere addresses what we all know is the core priority of a hotel — to provide guests with a fantastic night’s sleep. Caillere is convinced that this is one factor of a hotel stay that should be consistent among all hotel brands, from Motel 6 to Sofitel and as a result, a review of Accor’s beds will form a major project for 2012.
“Sofitel is known to have one of the best beds with Mybed by Sofitel, so we want to be known even in the economy brands to have the best bed.”
Growth is also on the agenda for 2012. Development is speeding up in markets such as Russia and Turkey, while growth in Africa will be driven through a joint venture.
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“We’ll have two companies, one will be a holding company, this company will own the hotels, and we’ll be one of the major shareholders, and another company that will manage the hotels. This is one way we use to expand in regions where we find partners,” says Caillère.
In the future, he says Iran and Iraq will have a high potential, and although he acknowledges that Japan is a difficult market to enter, Caillère thinks Accor will have the opportunity to establish itself there.
“The aim of Accor today is around growth, we want to grow everywhere, this is why the work that has been done over the last year was to revisit our brands to rebound faster regarding the efficiency of our brands.
“Second it’s to speed up as well in terms of growth; we’re going to move on the franchise model faster than we used to do,” says Caillère.
Ultimately though, the vision going forward comes back to brand diversification and strengthening each product. As well as rolling out Pullman, Caillère is focused on the MGallery brand, also created after the Sofitel relaunch and designed to be a collection of historic or otherwise distinct hotels that tell a story.
The Sofitel brand itself is diversifying with the expansion of the premium Softiel Legend hotels — of which there will only be 10 worldwide, several of which are in Egypt — and boutique So by Sofitel labels.
The Adagio and Suite Novotel extended stay brands will also be developed, with these expected to be popular in the Middle East where business travellers often require accommodation for one to three months, or more.
Furthermore, keeping the economy brands strong is vital he says, as the success of these in some ways protects Accor from downward cycles in the hotel business.
“When you are in the upper segment RevPAR can go from plus 15 to minus 15, when you are in the economy segment, it’s plus 4 to minus 4 [points], so it’s much more stable and the highest return on investment is in the economy segment too.
“When in a crisis, we need guests, but what happens; the guy will go from Sofitel to Pullman, from Pullman to Novotel, from Novotel to Mercure, Mercure to Ibis, but he will remain in the Accor network and this is why we have launched our loyalty programme,” says Caillère.
“Four years ago, we didn’t have a loyalty programme, so we launched the Accor ‘A|Club’ and we have 7.6 million members, we should be 8 million by the end of 2012, and we are targeting 15 million members. Tomorrow the big battle in the hotel business will be distribution so we have to be prepared — the loyalty programme is a good tool for that.”
ACCOR’S FOCUS POINTS IN 2012
• The expansion and establishment of the Pullman brand.
• Conversion of Etap hotels to Ibis Budget and All Seasons hotels to Ibis Styles, under the new Ibis megabrand.
• The roll out of the Grand Mercure brand, specifically developed for the Chinese market living in China.
• A review of the beds and bedding used in each segment, as Caillère aims to establish Accor as having the best beds in the business.
• The expansion of the MGallery collection of hotels.
• Growth in Africa through a new joint venture.
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