At the conference on Tuesday, May 12, we had as a great guest Mr. Luis Mirabelli, Vice President of Development for Hispanic Countries of South America of the important and prestigious international hotel chain Accor.
At the conference, Luis Mirabelli was able to share with us very interesting and diverse topics ranging from the general information of the Accor Brand, macroeconomic data of tourist interest, the initiatives that the company has executed during the pandemic, among others.
We will then go into some of the points mentioned in more detail.
Before the start of the talk, a very immersive introductory video of Accor was observed, where it was summarized in a very symbolic and simplified way what represents the brand image of the company. If you like to watch the video, you can see it by accessing the link where you can see the entire conference about this organization.
Starting the talk Luis Mirabelli, presented different economic indicators related to the tourism industry between 2019 and 2021. It was appreciated that during 2020 only China had a positive GDP, while the other countries of different continents were affected by the current conjuncture. Similarly, we look at the GDP of South America where in 2019 there was a very low growth of +1.1% compared to the previous year. 2020 had a decrease of -9.1% and by 2021 it is expected that there will be an increase of +4.7%.
On the other hand, we analyze how the current conjuncture of the pandemic has seriously affected the fall in the number of travelers between 2019 and 2020. In 2019 alone, the number of international travelers rose from 1,459 million to 379 billion, which represents a fall of 74% compared to the previous year. We also noticed how the RevPar of Accor has been affected during 2020.
Luis Mirabelli showed a study of importance that Accor made to its customers to be able to finally know, what would be the expectations that customers look for once you can travel quietly without the current restrictive measures of the pandemic. In this study came out predominant factors such as: 77% Safety in 1st place, 68% Leisure, Lifestyle & Local and the last 70% Flexibility.
With respect to the initiatives, Accor has carried out several effective actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, aimed mainly at 2 segments: To collaborators and investors and to customers.
With respect to collaborators and investors, a covid special purpose fund was established – 19, called the “All Heartist Fund”. This fund was created with the aim of helping Group employees and individual partners affected by the covid crisis 19. Accor unfortunately had to close much of its hotels worldwide due to the pandemic, and that meant the risk of losing employees and partners, however, with this fund could remedy a negative impact that put at risk the Accor chain. We can take this as an example of admiration, as it reflects a global solidarity initiative for both current and future crises facing humanity.
Meanwhile, in relation to customers, the company has further strengthened its high standards of hygiene and cleanliness to ensure the health, safety, and well-being not only of its customers, but also of its staff and partners. For this reason, they launched the seal of cleanliness and prevention called “AllSafe”. This crucial seal is developed and approved by the Bureau Veritas, which is the world leader in hygiene and cleaning inspection. This seal incorporates the cleanliness standards and the most rigorous biosecurity protocols in the hospitality world.
LIFESTYLE segment
Finally, another of the most important issues that Mr. Mirabelli told us was the repositioning of the Lifestyle segment of the chain. This seeks to connect the guest with the local community from their visit to the hotel, so the establishments are endowed with personality and attributes corresponding to the locality where it is located to go beyond the traditional accommodation. In this sense, Accor seeks to provide a place where the guest can interact, entertain, and enrich themselves culturally, that is, create a channel to generate interaction visitors; not where you can only taste food and sleep. This concept can be adapted to both economic segment brands and luxury brands. In the context of the pandemic and economic recovery, developing this segment becomes more prevalent, because current tourism trends indicate that the new tourist seeks to live more meaningful experiences in the town he visits and have a greater and more responsible approach to communities. Some participating brands in this segment are Mama Shelter, SLS and Hyde, acquired through the merger of shares between Accor, the SBE Group and Ennismore (Hosteltur, 2020).
For more information check out the following link of the full video of the conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NypVbufFYQA
References
Accor. (2021). “All Accor Live Limitless”. Retrieved from: https://all.accor.com/event/allsafe.es.shtml
Accor. (2021). “All Heartist Fund Accor”. Retrieved from: https://group.accor.com/en/group/our-commitments/all-heartist-fund
HOSTELTUR. (2021). “Accor is made with SBE and negotiates with Ennismore to lead the lifestyle”. Retrieved from: https://www.hosteltur.com/140890_accor-se-hace-con-sbe-y-negocia-con-ennismore-para-lider-el-lifestyle.html
Accor. (2021). “Lifestyle hotels expand our horizons”. Recovered from: https://group.accor.com/en/Actualites/2021/03/lifestyle
