Everything AccorHotels Has Acquired and Invested in Over the Past Year

If it feels to you as though AccorHotels has made a new deal every few weeks or days for the past year, you wouldn't be far off the mark. Indeed, the Paris-based hospitality company has completed a number of investments over the past year, snapping up other hotel brands or entering into partnerships with them, getting into alternative accommodations, and acquiring adjacent businesses that can supplement its core hospitality business. It's only April now, and already the company has announced five deals and partnerships for 2017. In 2016, the company had approximately eight of those transactions, the largest of them being its $2.7 billion purchase of the Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissotel brands. What follows is a closer look at each of AccorHotels' most recent acquisitions and/or investments, including some insight into why and how each one plays a part in the company's plans to be a new kind of hotel company. Joining the Alternative Accommodations Revolution Unlike its peers, AccorHotels hasn't been shy about actively investing in or even buying alternative accommodations providers. While the rest of the hotel industry is content to say that sharing economy businesses like Airbnb and the like aren't much of a threat, or that they cater to a different clientele, AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin thinks that kind of thinking isn't just bad but "irresponsible." "It would be absolutely foolish and irresponsible to fight against any new concept, offer, or services like this, let alone fighting against the sharing economy," Bazin told Skift shortly after the company announced its $168-million purchase of onefinestay. "This is where the world is leading us. All of those new services are very powerful and very well implemented and executed. You need to embrace it." In add