INTERVIEW – The French giant will give the walls of its facilities by a year to give themselves the means to strengthen its hotel operations. In an interview with Le Figaro , CEO AccorHotels reveals the keys to this strategic shift, announced after the acquisition of FRHI.
strategic Toned in AccorHotels. The French group announced Tuesday its plans to cede control of Hotel Invest, which owns the land (owned or rented) walls 1288 hotels. By the summer of 2017, Accor no longer holds between one-quarter and 49% of the capital Hotel Invest. This will generate several hundred million euros to invest in the development of the group, whose activities will be refocused on hotel operations and franchising. Its CEO, Sébastien Bazin, explains this development, as he announced just completed the acquisition of FRHI (Fairmont, Raffles) and must manage the ambitions of its main shareholder, the Chinese hotel group Jin Jiang.
LE FIGARO. – With FRHI Accor progresses in luxury and returned to the United States. Why is this important?
Sébastien Bazin. – The most important thing is to add to our portfolio Raffles, Fairmont and Swissôtel, three more centenarians than extremely strong brand with a very loyal clientele. We need to strengthen ourselves in the luxury segment, the market increased the most. These brands will benefit from the AccorHotels development capability. We will also take advantage of the phenomenal talent FRHI deposit. We recruited Chris Cahill, a former FRHI, to entrust the leadership of our luxury branch, which includes Sofitel, Pullman and MGallery. It will bring to AccorHotels another dimension, experience in customer relations, marketing, and his reading of the US market will benefit the entire group.
The AccorHotels s offer ‘ now extends hostels to private palaces and serviced apartments. How do you manage this balancing?
It is an asset. What is important is to enrich our offering. Most customers are crossover: sometimes they stay at Ibis, Mercure or Novotel in sometimes, other times at the Sofitel. To support our clients in their travels, our AccorHotels.com platform should offer 95% of what they need and multiply the points of contact. The site is to become our clients’ travel companion and offer them new services such as reservations of transport, museums, restaurants …
Read the full interview in this The Figaro to be published Wednesday 13 July, and on the web, mobile and tablet for Figaro Premium subscribers
“Accor will sell its hotel properties
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