Interview: Accor Hotels CEO on Moving Fast While Others Fail
Skift Take
Accor CEO Sebastien Bazin thinks the hotel industry has failed to get a wake-up call over the last 15 years and has missed out on wave after wave of digital innovation. He's saying all the right things about Accor addressing these past shortcomings, although the jury is still out on how much he'll be able to accomplish.
Sebastien Bazin, chairman and CEO of Accor Hotels, thinks the hotel industry has been a self-inflicted victim of inertia, having failed to respond over the last 15 years to the emergence of online travel agencies, their integration of travel metasearch, and now the sharing economy.
Appointed chairman and CEO of the hotel group in 2013, Bazin is determined to shake things up, having invested in digital assets, making overtures to independent hoteliers, and trying to change management culture by tying managers' compensation to the guest perception of the brand and properties.
"Accor is not going to be a spectator of its own life," Bazin says. "We're an actor."
He doesn't mince words, describing the hotel industry's joint booking initiative in Roomkey, as "pschitt." [The French slang terms doesn’t have a direct translation, but it comes from the sound of opening a can of soda as in something that blew up.]
Skift sat down with Bazin in Hollywood, Florida at the Phocuswright conference yesterday and discussed how Accor hotels is adapting to the sharing economy, investing in travel startups, and why he views Sub-Saharan Africa and Iran as extremely attractive expansion opportunities.
Skift: AccorHotels.com was one of the early partners in TripAdvisor Instant Booking. How has that been working out for you?
Sebastien Bazin: Well, it's been good, but it's not transforming. Did it impact my direct booking? No. Did it slow down the OTAs' (online travel agencies' booking? No. Is it additive, is it a good future? Yes.
Skift: Are you content with the branding that you get within TripAdvisor as part of that Instant Booking process?
Bazin: Yeah, we've been from the very early stages. We're very friendly, very positively minded towards Trip Advisor and all of their initiatives. We worked very closely with them. I think it's a good thing they've done it. It's cheaper for me.
Skift: Cheaper for you than OTAs? Is it strictly on a commission basis?
Bazin: Yes, it's purely on a commission basis, and the commission is lower than the one I pay to Booking.com and Expedia.
Skift: Now, what about Book on Google? They are starting something similar although it's commission or by cost-per click.
Bazin: We haven't seen it yet. We're considering absolutely everything with everyone if they're serious about it. I think they (Google) haven't decided yet whether they want to go in that direction or not. They're talking about it. They're mumbling about
