Shifts on how consumers work and play requires a big shift in how hotels come to market, cater to locals.
Editor’s note: This story first appeared in Hotel Investment
Today sister publication Business Travel News Europe.
Addressing the evolving needs of the hospitality industry
will require embracing bleisure travel, as business and leisure are now
"impossible" to segregate, Accor Group Chairman and CEO Sébastien
Bazin said last week during the company's 2023 Global Meeting Exchange in Paris.
"Don't try anymore to segregate leisure and business
because it’s going to be vastly impossible except on [meetings, incentives,
conventions and exhibitions] and congress events," Bazin said, attributing
those blurred lines to remote work, which he also encouraged organizations to
embrace.
Work-from-anywhere has proved to be "huge" for
Accor, Bazin said, adding that it generates “repeat loyal business” and has
changed his outlook on how the hotel business needs to evolve. To Accor, he
said, that evolution will concern far more than the guest room, even for
business travelers.
"The welcoming, the lobby, the bar, the restaurant, the
people you meet. … It’s all this hospitality we’ve missed for so many
years," Bazin said, calling the community spaces "critical" to
the success of hospitality in the new paradigm and adding that the hotel room
is just an "accessory." Indeed, much of the focus may be taken off
travelers.
Whatever we're going to be building in the future in terms of new brands, new hotels … has to be designed [and] programmed for the local community… not for the travelers.
Sébastien Bazin
"Whatever we're going to be building in the future in
terms of new brands, new hotels … has to be designed [and] programmed for the
local community… not for the travelers," he said, arguing that catering to
the local community will attract travelers more holistically, as they will know
the location is "busy, trendy, quirky [and] food and beverage works"
because of the uptake from the surrounding community.
"If you don’t respond to the locals, don’t expect to
respond to the non-locals. Start with the easiest, which is your neighborhood,"
he said, adding that Accor is extending that concept not only throughout
its product, service and hospitality mix, but also to how it can contribute to
communities.
Bazin highlighted the company’s recent initiatives to reach
into the communities where it does business and find a “different set of people”
to fill service gaps.
The company, he said, is seeking out employees without
higher education or hospitality experience and is looking to train them for the
roles they aspire to.
"When you’re talking about underprivileged local
community, show your hand, take them on board," Bazin said. "Train
them to have a greater self-esteem. They might leave you in five years, but you
would have done something good for your industry."
Company representatives pointed to refugees and others they
had employed within the food and beverage department, working through the
Accor endowment fund.