Do you think the current crisis will have a lasting impact on business travel?
Audrey Serror - The announcement of a potentially effective vaccine opens up positive prospects, which we did not have until a few days ago. We are undoubtedly moving towards an end to the health crisis next June, as Emmanuel Macron had said. But, after that, when are we going to get back to the flow levels we had in 2019? I don't have a crystal ball for that. We're talking about 2024, or even 2027, depending on the analysis criteria. As far as I'm concerned, I'm working on the principle that if companies want to grow, they will have to move. The need to meet will remain. You can't build business relationships by videoconferencing.
What effect does containment have on demand?
A. S. - She had a severe fall with the new confinement. Even though HCorpo is lucky enough to have a strong base of domestic business, which has enabled us to get by not too badly so far, we are suffering terribly. November was very weak and, with December often a slow month, we don't expect any improvement between now and the end of the year. But, if we had to find a positive point in this difficult contextDuring the first wave, we mainly saw cancellations, but now we're seeing a lot of requests for postponements. This means that people want to plan ahead. They're waiting to see how they can reschedule their appointments, but they don't want to stop travelling.
Let's go back a few months. How did HCorpo manage this crisis?
A. S. - As part of our continuity plan, we have decided to put all our sales staff on short-time working from March, but to keep our IT and customer service teams at 100 %. For all bookings, HCorpo carries out a 'quality check' before the traveller arrives, i.e. we systematically call the hotel to ensure that the room booked has been confirmed. This has enabled us to limit the number of incidents by identifying in advance the hotels that had closed. Of course, we don't always have a 100TP3T success rate, because we're not perfect. We are not perfect, we don't just sell a bed, we sell a room and a service. Before covid-19, we didn't talk much about this, but today it's a real issue, and one that differentiates HCorpo from Booking, for example, or from our direct B2B competitors.
Has service come back in force with the crisis?
A. S. - I'm convinced it will make a difference. For a long time, there was this feeling that we could manage everything online. But with the pandemic, we're realising that people are key. Travel agencies carry this message and companies understand the value of customer service. It's also our credo: hotels are a sensitive expense that requires expertise and a specific service.
For a long time, there was this feeling that we could manage everything online. But with the pandemic, we've realised that the human element is key.
You have recently added Feel Green and Feel Safe filters to your booking system.
A. S. - We have continued to develop to better meet new needs. That's why we've created these filters, which I call "feel goodOne - Feel Green - focuses on environmental commitments and the other - Feel Safe - on health and safety protocols. They provide transparency and clarity by enabling companies and their travellers to identify establishments that have made this type of commitment. There are now more than 100,000 such establishments on our booking platform.
The crisis has therefore encouraged this development.
A. S. - From the moment the pandemic arrived, the duty of care - the duty of employees to be protected by their company - came back to the fore. As long as everything is going well, we don't ask ourselves these questions. Today's reality is calling into question the established balance where primacy was given to price, and the rest had to follow. Today, safety is more important than price. Of course, pricing will always be an important issue, because companies need to optimise their costs, but they will be more vigilant about the "duty of care" dimension. At the same time, ethics is also a real issue. So, here too, we need to be able to distinguish hotels with a green approach, whatever the scale. Through these filters, we enable companies to give preference to this type of establishment in their travel policy.
Do you think that the health issue will remain as important after the crisis?
A. S. - Yes, because although we all hope that the recovery will be as rapid as possible, it will no doubt be many months before we can be certain that the virus is behind us. And we are not immune to the possibility of other viruses breaking out one day. For this reason, hygiene and health will remain important factors. In my opinion, hotels will want to go further in this area. I imagine, for example, that hotels will guarantee that travellers can be accompanied to a medical centre in the event of a problem. These are all things that are not being done today, but may be done tomorrow.
It's also a way of being as close as possible to the expectations, not only of companies, but also of travellers.
A. S. - When you travel on business, you don't choose your hotel for pleasure, because it has a spa or a golf course, but according to its geographical location and compliance with the pricing rules set by your company. Nevertheless, in the future, travellers will undoubtedly be more inclined to choose, for the same price, a hotel that shares its environmental values or guarantees its safety. In this sense, the "Feel Good" filters are part of a model that is no longer coercive, but positive.
What is the current state of synergies with your parent company, Accor?
A. S. - Being a start-up integrated into a large group gives us and our customers assurance and security for the future, even if the current situation is tense. From the acquisition of HCorpo two years agoAt first, there was a period of observation, but now there's a determination to develop more and better products. synergies with Accor. Given the crisis, this is not yet the time to set out the fruits of our reflections, but there are a number of things we can do. lots of things in the pipeline. Already, HCorpo manages the CEDA platformthe booking solution offered by Accor to nursing staff. Tomorrow, we can imagine other things, for example on the dematerialised payment or booking an office in a hotel with Wojo. There's a lot of talk about NDC in the airline sector. I'm convinced that while the hotel industry, because of its heterogeneous nature, has further to go in this direction, we're going to go faster and further to meet travellers' needs and make their lives easier.
