Will the new phase of decontamination announced on Sunday by the French President speed up the recovery of your hotels?
Franck Gervais - Today, half of our hotels in France are open. And we're reopening at a significant rate, since 70% of our hotels worldwide should have recovered by July. What was announced on Sunday will encourage people to start travelling again business. A number of obstacles to recovery have been removed, from the opening of European borders to the return to normal for schools. These things are key. I now hope that the 5,000-person limit for major events will be lifted before the original date of August 31. Not that this is essential for us, as there are few business events in the summer, but it would send a strong signal of confidence to all the organisers and exhibitors. We've had a positive signal from the leisure sector, and we need to get one from the business travel sector too.
How has business demand changed since the end of containment?
F. G. - In the first week of June, the number of business bookings recorded doubled compared to what we were receiving in mid-May, and was multiplied by 10 if we look two months back. Business activity is therefore starting to pick up again, mainly for stays in september. As far as June is concerned, we're still groping our way forward, and then come the July-August holidays. Of course, you can see the glass as half empty, because booking levels are still low. However, I prefer to see it as half full, because it sends out good signals, indicating a renewed desire to travel. And this change in business demand that we're seeing in France is also starting to happen in Belgium, Germany and Austria.
Alongside individual business demand, how will the seminars business emerge from the crisis?
F. G. - I think that in the future we will probably have fewer events, with fewer participants. On the other hand, their frequency could be more spread out in time, but also in space. I am convinced that we will see the emergence of new forms of meetings. Let's take the example of a company that used to bring its teams together in the same place for its annual seminar. Tomorrow, in order to limit travel, it could invite them to meet in three places at the same time, say Nice, Paris and Toulouse. The Parisians, the people from Toulouse and the people from Nice would all be able to take advantage of these opportunities to meet up, as well as spending time together, connected via Teams, WebEx or other means. We're already receiving requests of this type. And I'm sure we've got a lot to build on.
The pandemic has meant that the entire customer experience has had to be adapted to meet the new hygiene and health safety standards. How has this been reflected in your Group's hotels?
F. G. - We took advantage of the pre-opening period to completely overhaul the customer journey. All our hotels have received operational guides with all the application procedures, whose recommendations exceed the ambitions of the profession. To draw up these guides, we asked ourselves how the health protocol had to be applied at every stage of the journey; at check-in, in the rooms, in the lobby and in our meeting rooms. All this while maintaining the warmth of our welcome. One of the changes we have made is to encourage payment by contactless card, so as to ensure that our guests are kept at arm's length. We have also redesigned the lobbies and increased the frequency with which critical contact points, such as lift buttons, are cleaned. In the bedrooms, the most frequently handled objects have also been removed. And for those that are necessary, such as remote controls, we have added a silicone protection that makes cleaning easier.
Another development that business travellers will find when they return to the hotel is the buffets. How have you revised this offer?
F. G. - Buffets are not banned, as I've often read. However, they are subject to a number of restrictions. The number of people around the buffet at any one time must be limited. There must be only one direction of traffic to avoid crossing paths. The cutlery has to be changed every time someone uses it. So to avoid all this, we favour table service. All this required a lot of rehearsal, in particular to see how best to arrange the tables, but also to review the whole service sequence before integrating it into the processes and training. At the same time, the breakfast service can be served in the room for our loyal customers.
With all the new constraints linked to the pandemic, is the pleasure of travelling still the same?
F. G. - I'm not going to lie to you, it's not the same as before. When you fly, you have to put on a mask as soon as you get to the airport. At the hotel, you're greeted by someone wearing a mask. There are these Plexiglas windows and a whole host of measures which, I agree, are not entirely in line with what is meant by hospitality. But that's what it took to get going again. It was this or nothing.
Our key question is how to provide a warm customer experience and a protocol that is consistent with a quality welcome.
So is it still possible to offer your customers a real experience?
F. G. - Our key question is how to offer a warm customer experience and a protocol consistent with a quality welcome. What the hotels put in place must not be anxiety-provoking. At the very beginning, establishments had to separate zones with a lot of Rubalize, with a ban on going to one place or another. But that's what we don't want to see any more, because we'll have to live with this obligation of physical distancing for some time to come. Today, we need to find the right balance between reassurance and protection.
Could technology play an even more important role here?
F. G. - In the past, everyone wanted a seamless journey. Today, with the imperative of distance, it must also be "contactlesscontactless. We are currently considering the evolution of the tools we have developed for mobile reception. Thanks to these, staff could come into contact with travellers to help them check in. Today, the question is how we can put this in the hands of the traveller so that they can do it on their smartphone, without the customer experience losing coherence. We have designed all this and are now working with our owners to deploy our solutions. But we're definitely going to move towards this.
Together with Bureau Veritas, you have undertaken a process to label your sanitary protocols, known as "ALL Safe". Does this meet strong customer expectations?
F. G. - Depending on the country, health safety has become, along with room price, the number one or two choice criterion, ahead of other criteria such as location, comfort or wifi quality. Customers need reassurance and informed about the concrete measures that will change its course. Without wallpapering the ALL Safe logoAt the relevant points of contact, we'll put it forward to explain that here, cleaning frequencies will be higher, that there, we've removed this or that object because it can be handled too often. We need to explain the whys and wherefores to our customers so that they are not surprised by this absence.
The ALL Safe label represents a strong commitment on your part. Is it also essential for business customers?
F. G. - It is extremely important. Several CAC 40 companies have included in their travel policy the obligation to go to Accor hotels, precisely because they have undertaken this certification process. In practice, it guarantees that after a remote audit, each hotel will be visited by a Bureau Veritas employee in France - or by other bodies elsewhere in Europe - to check that everything laid down in our operational guide is actually being implemented. Among other things, we check that staff and subcontractors have been trained, that cleaning has been stepped up here and there, and that signage is in place. This label is not based solely on an assessment based on a sample of hotels and paper procedures. In France, between 200 and 300 establishments have already begun this process, and we hope to see 80% of our hotels awarded the label eventually.
Several CAC 40 companies have included in their travel policy the obligation to stay in Accor hotels, precisely because they have undertaken this labelling process.
In the medium term, could the crisis have an impact on the development of your hotel portfolio?
F. G. - There will probably be a delay in our opening schedule, which is logical given the stoppage of a number of projects. But, and this is reassuring, our pipeline is not shrinking. There is no break in our development dynamic. Especially as we can probably expect a phase of consolidation. Independent hoteliers are going to have more and more concerns about brand awareness, costs and loss of earnings. As the leader in Europe, we are in the best position to attract them and convert their establishments to one or other of our brands, our portfolio in this area is also very broad. Furthermore, the fact that we are a European player, with teams that are well established on the continent and have remained close to hoteliers throughout this complex period, is a differentiating factor.
In the future, will the undoubtedly greater use of teleworking have an impact on your business?
F. G. - The question that will arise is how to strike the right balance between teleworking as a whole, which has shown its limits in terms of comfort, and being in the office all week, with all that this adds in terms of creativity, meetings and project development. We're thinking about this internally, for our employees, but also for our customers. Because Wojo (editor's note: a subsidiary of Accor and Bouygues dedicated to coworking) certainly has a role to play in this. the evolution of the flex office. Companies are already telling us that they want to find an alternative between having their employees work from home and having them all return to the office, in terms of transport congestion and work-life balance. In this context, the workspaces created by Wojo in our hotels could be just the thing. extend to our bedroomsEspecially those with lounges. In the future, we could very well imagine corporate contracts including overnight stays, seminars and a certain number of rooms where employees could spend a few hours or a day, with the added benefit of breakfast or lunch, quality WiFi, comfort, service and compliance with health standards. When you have 1,650 hotels like Accor in France, you can offer a comfortable alternative to companies and their employees, less than 10 km from their home.
