FRENCH hotel group, Accor, witnessed a comfortable year with its properties in the region faring well, especially Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Christophe Landais, managing director Accor Middle East, says: “We witnessed a great penetration in the market for our midscale and economy segments. Bahrain is slowly recovering although still not at 2008 levels, and other GCC areas are rather stable or increasing slightly.”
In terms of challenges, the instability in Egypt had direct effect on its properties there as well as indirectly on it Jordan properties due to the unrest in Syria. “In Saudi Arabia, the visa restriction for the Umra season before Ramadan certainly was one of the biggest challenges of the year,” said Landais adding that the group now faced challenges on staff recruitment and retention in general due the numerous hotel opening pressuring the labour forces with additional running cost and salary rises.
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Following the 2012 trend with high occupancy, RevPar was driven through a strong average daily rate (ADR) increase in 2013. “Our web distribution over performed in 2013 and the launch of our Arabic accorhotels.com web will accelerate our market share development. This was a key success in our yield management strategy and RevPar increase,” explains Landais.
In general, the group’s key source markets have been the GCC and Saudi Arabia with interest growing from the CSSR, and the Asian markets (particularly China and Korea). “We are further noticing a rise in the North American, South American, as well as Australian markets, attributing to the new alliance between Emirates and Qantas. In terms of new markets, we as Accor, are always working diligently in tapping any new potential markets and Asia overall is growing fast,” Landais adds.
Accor Middle East will open 12 hotels in 2014 mainly in UAE and Saudi Arabia with over 2,900 rooms including the launch of Adagio, Accor’s international Apart Hotels Brand.
Other developments include the newly launched geo-localised Arabic website which is a major milestone for the region and its growing loyalty programme Le Clubaccorhotels for online group meeting reservations.
Landais concludes: “We are confident Expo 2020 will have significant impact over the next seven years and beyond; Accor, in addition of its international coverage, will have the advantage of its massive local presence, being able to cater customer’s needs within all market segments from luxury and Upper Upscale with its Sofitel and Pullman brands to Upscale and Midscale with Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure and Adagio all the way to the economy segment with Ibis.”