From the archive
Under the leadership of chief disruption officer Thibault Viort, AccorHotels has begun investing significantly in accelerator competitions and start-up incubators across Europe, such as The Camp in Aix en Provence, France.
“Firstly, it allows us to recognise start-up talent and bring [it in] directly, creating loyal relationships and partnerships at an early stage,” Viort explains. It almost goes without saying that AccorHotels’ involvement in the competitions also constitutes an unparalleled networking opportunity for the operator. “Throughout our involvement in these widespread, globally integrated events, we are able to project our involvement in the area,” says Viort. “Within the past year, we co-managed with Innov Lab, another innovation team from AccorHotels, about ten partnerships [including] Techstars, Paris Pionnières, The Camp [and] Global Startup Weekend Women.”
Existential crises
Moving from an entrepreneurial background to working from a hotel operator – turning into the hunter after being hunted, as it were – initially brought its own challenges for Viort. “The two environments have different ways of working, thinking and evolving,” he explains. “When I arrived, AccorHotels was mostly focused around a ‘project- management’ culture.”
In this respect, things are beginning to change. Now, ‘product conception’ is central to AccorHotel’s internal thinking, “exemplified by the launch of the Jo&Joe concept”, says Viort of the millennial-friendly hotel brand. “The start-ups our team acquired and the new hotel brands that have recently increased AccorHotels’ portfolio have brought new people into the group, [who] progressively contribute to an enriched and agile group culture.” So far, Viort has had some notable successes in his choice of start-up investment and partnerships. To what extent this work has shored up AccorHotels’ defences against the greatest hospitality start-up of them all, however, remains unclear. Curiously, the chief disruption officer is reluctant to admit that the two are on the same playing field, let alone in competition with one another.
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“While we recognise that we are ‘disrupting’ the modern hospitality market, modernising traditional hospitality alongside other actors in the technology and hospitality sector – namely, Airbnb – we continue to feel confident in our ability to uniquely secure our niche,” explains Viort. That, he claims, encompasses vast swathes of the hospitality market beyond alternative accommodations. Even the work the disruption and growth department is doing in that sector does not overlap with that of Airbnb. “With the acquisition of Onefinestay, Travel Keys and Squarebreak, and their recent integration, we were able to establish ourselves as a leader in the luxury private rental niche, a very particular section of rentals,” he explains. Their clientele, says Viort, “are interested exclusively in luxury opportunities”.
In fact, the chief disruption officer is content to see the online rental start-up as an example of what is possible in the hospitality industry than a clear and present danger to AccorHotels’ market share. “We believe that through our leverage of our uniquely influential and global hotel brand name, our multiple domains of investment interest, and our focus on the luxury industry, we were able to distinguish ourselves from Airbnb and [other] competitors,” explains Viort. The idea that AccorHotels, via Onefinestay, is not directly competing with Airbnb is perplexing, especially since the latter has been experimenting with luxury rental offerings for some time now. Even so, it is fair to say that the operator’s increasing willingness to invest in all areas of the booking process – from OTAs to rental platforms and services that augment its legacy properties – will likely put it in good stead in what looks like a volatile future for the hospitality sector. Certainly, Viort’s time at AccorHotels has led him to an inescapable conclusion: change is, in fact, the only certainty in his line of work. “This is one of the reasons our team was created: to be able to observe, follow and anticipate these changes and, more importantly, to be able to act upon them.” ●
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
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