AccorHotels Was In the Mood for Another Acquisition and to Personalize Hotel Booking

AccorHotels CEO Sebastien Bazin has made no effort to hide the fact that he wants to change the way people think about and use hotels, whether it be enabling them to function as community centers at times or being able to book both flights and independent hotels on Accor's website. In this spirit, AccorHotels announced its newest partnership with Travelsify, which markets itself as the "world's first hotel DNA content platform," to personalize the hotel booking process for travelers online. And given the company's recent acquisition tear (last week Accor announced its intent to purchase a French events company), it wasn't a total surprise that AccorHotels also announced the purchase of VeryChic for an undisclosed amount. VeryChic is a European, member-based seller of discounted luxury and upscale hotel rooms, apartments, cruises, breaks, and vacation packages through online "flash sales." The site states it has more than 5 million members, more than 4,000 exclusive sales, and advertises listings from more than 3,000 partner hotels. Why Buy VeryChic? In a press statement, AccorHotels said it "intends to strengthen its expertise in the creation of exceptional private sales and also to enable VeryChic to accelerate its international development and become the global leader in its sector." Romain Roulleau, senior vice president of e-commerce and digital services for AccorHotels, told Skift that VeryChic's expertise in the "push model" of flash sales is what attracted AccorHotels most. He said that while AccorHotels has also had its own version of flash sales for its loyalty members for the past five or six years, it wasn