Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport #41

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
We are more looking at experience.
Sometimes, people want ultra-luxury for a
special occasion and sometimes people are
looking for something more casual than the
luxury experience. They just want the right
location and amenities but they don’t need
a bellman and round-the-clock concierge
service; they are looking for something
accessible. With our 600 hoteliers sharing
the same vision of hospitality and our 6
new categories, guests can always find the
perfect hotel to get the most of local life.
What value do you bring to the
hoteliers that the others don’t?
This is the big thing because we are talking
about chains coming into our space, such
as the strategy of Curio by Hilton, or
Autograph Collection by Marriott. That’s
a great complement, because all these
chains are coming through something
called a Soft brand, which is what we
have been for more than 50 years. It
means that what has been decided with
“The Originals” has been validated, and
we have been doing this for 50 years: it is
not new for us to be a soft brand. Owners
always deliberate on whether they want
to be independent or be affiliated with a
chain. Hospitality is very complicated, so
what we give to owners today is the space
to be independent while providing them
different value services like distribution,
marketing, a digital procurement platform,
a training academy and a brand, for a
quality consumer experience. We provide
added value but we are not going deeper
when it comes to the management of
the hotel, because most of our hotels are
independent.
I strongly believe that travellers today
are actively seeking the kind of hotels
where they can have a unique experience.
Independent hotels all have their own
individual stories and singularities, so to
be transparent with the traveller today, we
talk about the humans and the experience,
meaning true hospitality.
You were talking about distribution.
How do you do the bookings through
the central site, and how does that
compare to some of the other big
groups?
Today, we are in a niche market, so we
primarily promote the destinations, and
each hotel is promoted with a real story.
We write the story with the hotel, along
with the key activities and experiences
travellers can live on property, but also
find in the environs, whether it be
fishing, golf, hiking… the list goes on.
We promote each hotel with what they
can provide the customer. In order to do
this efficiently, we signed a major deal
with TravelClick by Amadeus, which is
a complete technological solution, and
which we have been working on for the
past 18 months. Via this unique platform,
we have the distribution, but we also have
a loyalty programme, we get the business
intelligence and the customer surveys. So,
it’s a unique platform where the hotelier
can manage his or her reservations, loyalty
and customer data. They get everything
on the one unique platform, including the
booking engine and the website.
Your background obviously has had
a lot to do with consumer facing
technologies, and this must be a big
asset for the group as well. How are
you leveraging that in helping these
hotels get a better grip on what people
are looking for today when it comes to
technologies in the hotels themselves?
Yes my background has a lot to do with
consumer technologies, but everything
revolves around the consumers so when
you make a study and you see that your
five brands are not really visible for our
customer, we had to come back to the
consumer in terms of marketing. This new
marketing concept was one of the main
challenges when it came to convincing the
hoteliers that while they had had their own
brand for more than 50 years, that they
should change it for a unique “group”
brand and that this would help us “grow
the pie”. I use the knowledge I obtained in
the past on the way consumers are using
technology to convince hotels that they
need to move towards something that
would be easier to understand, getting
more turnover for each hotel. This was the