While the emergence of Airbnb may for a time have shaken the leaders of the hotel industry to their foundations, the time has come for hotel groups to fight back. Wyndham invested around ten million euros last year in Love Home Swap; American franchisor Choice launched Vacation Rentals by Choice Hotels in February; Spain's RoomMate is developing its BeMate.com flat reservation platform... - but AccorHotels has gone further by buying out onefinestay, to 148 million euros. "To get to where onefinestay is today, we would have needed two or three years of in-house work and almost the same level of investment, while running the risk of onefinestay joining forces with other players and occupying the market in the meantime."As Sébastien Bazin, CEO of AccorHotels, explained on Tuesday when the acquisition was presented.
Launched in 2010 and dubbed by some as the"Airbnb for the richonefinestay offers more than 2,600 homes - not far from 10,000 rooms - in upmarket areas of London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, with Rome to follow in June. These very high quality private flats, which onefinestay has the exclusive right to rent out, rent for around 500 euros a night. However, unlike Airbnb, onefinestay does more than simply put owners and travellers in touch with each other. The company adds a whole range of services such as a personalised welcome, cleaning and top-of-the-range towels, as well as a 24/7 customer service via iPhone available to guests during their stay. Travellers can also use the smartphone to access a wealth of tourist information about the area and destination.
Prior to this takeover, the British start-up had not been a complete stranger to the hotel world, since last year the Hyatt group took part in a $40 million fund-raising operation to support its development. But it is AccorHotels that will be writing its future. "Over the past six months, we have met with most of the top executives of the world's major groups. Only one group has really understood what onefinestay could become in the future: Accor Hotels."said Greg Marsh, co-founder of onefinestay.
While the takeover by AccorHotels will not change the way onefinestay is organised, as it will operate independently within the French group, it will enable onefinestay to accelerate its development. Accor intends to invest 64 million euros to support the brand's expansion in major international cities, and 40 new destinations are expected over the next five years. This growth will be based on the experience developed by onefinestay's management over the past six years and on the Accor teams' knowledge of distant markets, as well as, in a way, on customers who are used to the top-of-the-range Fairmont, Sofitel and Pullman hotels and who might be tempted to rent their residences via onefinestay.
This acquisition demonstrates the French group's determination to position itself as a major player in this fast-growing market segment. Earlier this year, AccorHotels acquired a 49 % stake in Squarebreak, a digital platform offering top-of-the-range villas in France, and a 30 % stake in Oasis Collections, a highly corporate flat offering with 1,500 properties in Latin America, the United States and Europe.
