accorhotels.com: OTA with its own logic

Amsterdam. Earlier this year, during the 2015 Q4 earning call with investors, TripAdvisor's CEO, Stephen Kaufer, caught people's attention when he mentioned that "tours and activities is a very fragmented market opportunity worth 80 billion dollars in the US and Europe alone." That's enough to motivate key players from the hospitality industry, from OTAs to hoteliers, to vie for a piece of that cake. It is not surprising that online agencies have already moved their pawns, taking the lead over hoteliers who, as usual, are trying to catch up. Travel activities and restaurants are the next billion-dollar-revenue business stream Booking.com, Airbnb, Google, TripAdvisor, AccorHotels, etc. are getting on the bandwagon. Sarah Douag describes their new tools for tours and activities – and efforts for cross-selling.

Paris. When announcing the opening of its own booking platform to other properties in June, AccorHotels vowed to recruit 7,000 partners around the world. Four months later, things are starting up slowly. The commission is set: 14%, plus 5% extra for the hotels, which want to benefit from the loyalty program.

Paris/London. "Customer focussed not product focussed" was the heart of the message transmitted by Accor's top management during a morning-long presentation of the chain's new digital strategy in London on Tuesday, 30 October. Clad in a black t-shirt and black trousers, standing on the podium barefoot, Accor's CEO, Sébastien Bazin had more the air of a Silicon Valley 'guru' addressing a crowd of tech business angels than the head of Europe's largest hotel group. Aside of this show, the main message quickly was clear: All Accor distribution channels are supposed to increase significantly in near future.