Paul Revel catches up with Accor chief operating officer Yann Caillère during the launch party for the new Pullman Dubai Deira City Centre, and later at ITB Berlin.
You have big expansion plans for Pullman, your main upscale business travel brand. Yet at BBT we’re seeing a lot of corporate travel programmes looking for more budget accommodation…
Yes, our economy brands are expanding as well. It’s a growing sector even in the Middle East. In Saudi we’re opening our first Ibis in Riyadh, and the Ibis World Trade Centre Dubai is doing more than 90% occupancy all-year round.
Europe is struggling, and yes, we have seen some business travellers downgrading – but they want to stay in the Accor family; stepping down from a Sofitel to a Pullman, or from a Pullman to a Novotel or Mercure. But this is not the case in Asia or Latin America – these are key growth markets for the Pullman brand. We currently have 78 Pullmans and our goal is 150 worldwide by 2015-2020.
And in China we created a local upscale brand Mei Jue – the China-specific version of Grand Mercure – because of demand for it. Of the 633 hotels in Accor’s pipeline, 77 per cent are outside Europe.
You seem to be keen on driving more direct sales via your website.
We currently average around 50 per cent direct sales, it varies from country to country. Distribution is key in the hotel business today. We have seen this; in the US our competitors joined together to create the RoomKey concept [the online booking portal run by major hotel brands].
The online travel agencies [OTAs] take very high commissions, sometimes up to 20-25 per cent. This is why we need to better master our distribution channels, and why we’re investing in direct online booking – we recently launched our best-in-class mobile app. But it’s not black and white: we do need OTAs as complement to our direct business, and also in markets where we are not strong enough. When I joined Accor, we had no agreement with Expedia. I asked the team, why not? Because the commission is too high; it’s 15%. I said there’s two ways to look at it; yes would cost us 15 per cent – the other way to look at it is they’re bringing us business at 85 per cent! But we don’t want the OTAs to take away our natural direct business.
But what about corporate business, you’re not expecting to get that direct?
We do have big direct corporate agreements, key account management is an important element of our business. Global corporate agreements work very well because they can cover the whole world – Accor is the biggest operator in all markets apart from North America – but also we have the full range of properties from luxury to economy, so all the different rankings within a corporation can be accommodated in a global agreement.
What difference does the booking channel make to the traveller?
Le Club Accorhotels loyalty programme is key to this. We were late starters but we now have more than 10 million members four years after creating the programme. Good customer relationship managent = knowing the guest and anticipating their needs. For example, when I fly into Dubai, from my profile the hotel knows I am a tennis fan, and can send me an email or SMS saying the tennis championships are taking place now, would I like tickets booked for me?
And we’re doing tests with RFID [radio-frequency identification] so that soon you’ll already be checked in and know your room number before you arrive, so you can go directly to your room, your room key is on your mobile phone. It changes the business model but doesn’t mean there is no receptionists. It means means they are freed up from the check-in process to focus on welcoming people.