In conversation with Julia Simpson, president and CEO, WTTC, Bazin highlighted key changes in the ways that people will travel and the kinds of experiences they are likely to prioritise, as he suggested routes to success.

“People will travel more and more domestically,” he said. “Not at the expense of international travel, but we have never seen more domestic travel than now.”

He also predicted that “international travellers will travel less, but will stay longer, by around two days”.

Bazin noted that while the younger generations were “very keen to travel”, he expected them to spend less money on reaching their destinations and on hotels, “and more on F&B and entertainment”. He added that young demographics were going to be a key target of Accor going forward, after feeling that “Accor has been focusing too much on the older generations”. He said that the average age of an Accor client was 47 and quipped that “the good news is that they will live for another forty years!”

He said that he had always been of the view that hotel assets that start out with the aim of serving a local population would by default be attractive to travellers from further afield, because a hotel with buzzing F&B and shared spaces would always be “sexy and inspiring”.

Luxury ambitions

Turning to the topic of luxury travel, which has been a key focus for Accor in recent times, he explained that the push into niches like yachts and trains had been driven by a desire to “bring the product to the client”, rather than having to “push a product to a traveller that is then forced to go to the hotel”. He added: “Moving luxury assets is exciting” and said that travellers had responded well to the innovations, with customers booking stays in the new Orient Express hotel in Rome or reserving the train in Venice and “booking the yacht on the same trip”.

When asked if there was room for multiple operators to enter the attractive luxury sector, Bazin warned that expertise was essential. “It’s all about experience, recognition and personalisation,” he remarked. “You need to provide a service ahead of the ask – you need to anticipate. It’s a space where people spend twice as much and there is twice the repeat custom, but it’s not a place you can play if you only have midscale experience.”

Labour and technology

Bazin went on to tackle the twin topics of labour and technology, two of the industry’s most pressing themes. He noted that Accor had hired some 142,000 new people in the last 12 months, with a huge recruitment drive necessary due to some 300 new hotel openings. “Of those 142,000 of hires, some 70 percent have never been to university, and never even had a job before,” he said, noting that the company was “perhaps proudest” about the work it is doing with the underprivileged while solving staff shortages. He referenced World Bank data that warns of growing volumes of unemployed young people in parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and said that “hospitality is one of the answers to this”.

Turning to technology, he said that Accor was “trying to get faster at it” and suggested that tech “is going to be an enormous enhancer and is going to be magical in terms of automation”. However, he also said that a tech chief he had recently met at a conference had admitted to him that “hospitality is so driven by human capital, that you will never be replaced by AI”.

When asked about his “big dream” for the future, Bazin said that he “didn’t have one anymore” but said he had an “ask” for the audience. “Despite geopolitics, despite the decisions of our leaders, can you please welcome the people of America even more warmly than before when they come to Europe?” he said. “It’s all about caring. Let’s leave the leaders to do what they do.”

By Isobel Lee