Jean-Michel Cassé, Chief Operating Officer (COO) – India and South Asia, Accor speaks to RITZ MAGAZINE on his long journey in the hospitality industry.
How has your journey with Accor in India been so far?
I have had a very exciting journey with Accor, where with consistent hard work, determination, and the support of all my colleagues, friends, my French community in India and most importantly my guests have led us to this point of having 51 hotels across 22 cities in India and South Asia.
For Accor, how important is India as a market?
India continues to play a pivotal role for Accor. We have immersed ourselves into the country with customized offerings to suit the needs of the market and guests, with our ‘Born in France, Made in India’ philosophy – a melange of our French heritage and Indian culture. The growth of the Indian hospitality market is tremendous as well as for India. For Accor in India, densification is our development priority. This strategy allows us to enter and expand in key cities and offer multiple brands across varying budgets to guests thus becoming the number one player in that city. We are always looking forward to present quality development projects. In April this year, we announced the iconic Raffles brand, which sets the standard for luxury hospitality, is coming to India and shared details of two upcoming Raffles properties in Udaipur and Jaipur.
We will continue to drive our midscale and economy portfolio; we are also focussed on expanding our luxury, lifestyle and premium brands portfolio to India. Presently, a 646 keys Fairmont Mumbai is under active construction and we are actively engaged in developing a Fairmont in Goa.Banyan Tree, SO/, SLS, Delano, Mondrian amongst others are some of the brands which have potential growth and audience in the Indian market. We are also interested in the development of branded, private & serviced residences in urban and sought-after locations in the country. There are plenty of opportunities in India and partners become central to our success. One such partnership has been with InterGlobe Hotels, which has enabled us to develop and grow our economy ibis brand. From only a single ibis hotel a decade ago, this year in January, Accor launched its 19th ibis property – ibis Kolkata Rajarhat.
How big is Accor in India and which brands do you have here?
In just over a decade, Accor in India and South Asia has a growing network of 51 hotels across 22 cities with approximate 9,500 keys, that represent ten of Accor’s internationally acclaimed brands. These include:
- Luxury: Fairmont (1), Sofitel (1)
- Premium: Pullman (1), Swissôtel (1), Mövenpick (1), Grand Mercure (3)
- Mid-scale: Novotel (20) and Mercure (3)
- Economy: ibis (18) and ibis Styles (1)
- Others: Bheemli Resort- Managed by Accor (1)
We are also looking at launching Grand MercureGopalan Bengaluru and Grand MercureGandhinagar GIFT City before the end of this year.
What do you mean by augmented hospitality?
Accor has reshaped its core business around the idea of “Augmented Hospitality” — a refined vision for what a hotel stands for and the services it can provide to a community of customers made up of guests and locals alike. As hospitality brands rethink their service offerings beyond the overnight guest experience, the hotel of the future has a bigger role to fill as a community hub and everyday problem solver for locals.
So, how would you define the Accor brand today?
To create the future of hospitality, means we have to constantly reinvent it. Today, Accor is a global leader in augmented hospitality. Apart from the change in our name from AccorHotels to Accor, we also changed our tagline to “Live Limitless”. This captures the spirit behind our strategy—that boundless hospitality brings inspiration to life. It is both an attitude and promise. To partners, it expresses our expertise for limitless performance and success. To our talents, it’s a rallying cry to go beyond what’s possible. And of course, for the consumer it conveys our mission to unlock limitless experiences not just in travel, but in life. One of such examples is the partnership with Paris Saint-Germain Football Cub for a global multi-year partnership agreement to become the Principal Partner and official jersey sponsor.
According to you what is the future of hospitality in India?
The hospitality industry will focus on providing an immersive experiential service to guests. Travellers demand for unique and exclusive experiences which include authentic, traditional and personalised elements. Be it the décor, cuisine, interacting with locals, folklore- these make for an essential checklist for the guests. Moreover, guests want everything to be picture worthy to post on social media platforms. Guest want easy and quick access to everything which is the talk of the town and is popular around them be it music shows, sports events, meeting with their favourite artist or players, exclusive backstage entries and much more from the entertainment factor. In the culinary world as well, they look for more authentic yet fun and informal experiences like meet the chef, exclusive menu reveals and the likes. They are interested in ‘money can’t buy experiences. We are taking forward our strategy of Augmented Hospitality, and are working towards providing many such tangible experiences and create engagement to acquire, retain and inspire our guests.
Having a robust Loyalty programme is also a soaring trend in the global hospitality scenario. Currently, the meaning of loyalty programme has shifted from being just redemption and earning points for rooms and upgrades is passé. We are living amidst millennial travellers and they always want more. Exclusive invites to popular music or sports event, exclusive food tastings with popular chefs’, unique spa settings and much more are in demand. They are interested in ‘money can’t buy experiences. At Accor, we are going to be launching a revamped loyalty programme ALL- Accor Live Limitless where we will deliver services and experiences to enrich lives of our esteemed guests.
