From the archiveFrom the archive
The start-up of success
Appointed by AccorHotels in April 2016, Thibault Viort remains the hospitality industry’s only chief disruption offi cer. Two years on, Greg Noone talks to the former
entrepreneur turned start-up guru about how his department’s acquisitions and partnership strategy is helping the brand revolutionise the way it approaches hotel operations.
in a garage, or else some kind of basement, run by twentysomething entrepreneurs who are plucky and well meaning, yet endearingly naive. But what is most important is the idea – that glimmering epiphany lying at the heart of the enterprise. It is always, without fail, meant to change the world. The reality is invariably more prosaic. More start-ups fail than succeed and their ideas are rarely earth- shattering. A select few, however, persist long enough for much larger corporations to appreciate their ideas for what they’re worth, before either partnering with the founders or buying up their businesses wholesale. And increasingly, this is what start-ups all over Europe are looking towards Thibault Viort to do. As chief disruption officer for AccorHotels, it’s his job to ascertain what ideas are worthy of being brought into
T 32
he popular idea of how a start-up begins is certainly romantic, if a little limited. The corporations of tomorrow are supposed to begin
the fold of Europe’s biggest hotel operator, and when. “Being a chief disruption officer is, first and foremost,
a position that embodies the state of mind of constantly being on the lookout for new ideas,” Viort explains, somewhat philosophically. “This requires an ability to anticipate future changes and track down new growth opportunities for the [Accor] group.” It’s a careful balancing act. Get it right, and Viort
has a chance at imbuing hotel operations with a new- found sense of dynamism. Invest in the wrong ideas, however, and the operator may find itself out of pocket in a failed attempt to compete against not only other hotel giants, but also the growing threat posed by the online rental sector.
Old hat Time was that AccorHotels only needed to rely on a single concept. When Paul Dubrule and Gérard Pelisson broke ground on the first Novotel in 1967, they were
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
