According to In Extenso, the French hotel industry is set for a strong recovery in 2022. What are your expectations for the current year?
Olivier Petit - Even if the macroeconomic forecasts are difficult at the moment, we expect the following for 2023 further growth in revenue per bedroome of +4% in the regions, +4.5% on the Côte d'Azur and +6.5% in Paris. While in 2022, average prices will have risen - and quite dramatically in some areas - this year's growth will be driven by additional occupancy. This additional occupancy will be generated by catching up with the first few months of 2022, which were affected by the Omicron wave, by the attractiveness of the euro zone to American customers, when the exchange rate will be advantageous to them, and finally by the return of Chinese customers. It seems to be starting to happen in London, and we should also see it in France in the second half of the year. As a result, occupancy rates will pick up a few points, boosting the year.
So do you think that the price hike, which will be very significant in 2022, will ease off?
Olivier Petit - I would be quite surprised to see the trend seen in recent months continue. I think that we've come a long way on the average price. While there will undoubtedly be a slight compression in rates over certain periods, we are confident that the hotel sector in France, and Paris in particular, will continue to perform well. All this will be underpinned by major events such as the Rugby World Cup in the autumn and major trade fairs such as SIRAH, Pollutec and Le Bourget, which will bolster the dual dynamic of flows and average prices.
While leisure customers have supported the sector over the last two years, are business customers also contributing to this recovery?
Olivier Petit - According to STR, individual business customers are certainly not fully back to where they were in 2019, but we're not far off, to 90%/95% pre-pandemic levels. The problem today is that it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between what is really pure business and what is pure leisure. Everything is more blurred, more intertwined.
In fact, are you able to analyse the proportion of individual business customers who, for example, arrive on a Thursday and stay at the hotel at the weekend?
Olivier Petit - I can't measure it fully, but I can see it in my discussions with hoteliers. This bleisure dimension is a reality that can also be seen in the figures. Hotel occupancy on Sundays is no longer such a disaster. Similarly, the soaring occupancy rates during the last All Saints' Day holidays suggest that couples had to go away as a family, one teleworking for two or three days while the other looked after the children.
In Extenso's analysis of the sector shows that the results for seminar hotels are still a little below the competition. But it seems that meetings have been back on track for several months. How do you explain this lag?
Olivier Petit - The seminar market is here to stay. Flex office, teleworking, all these factors mean that companies increasingly need to bring their teams together to create cohesion and pass on messages. Company conventions are also picking up. But they have not yet reached 2019 levels, at least not in Paris and the Ile-de-France region, seminar hotels are firmly on the road to recovery. But while they have made up for the good corporate business, the leisure segment is a little sluggish. This clientele, which will have seen average prices rise by 2022, is more attracted to boutique hotels than to large business hotels. This explains why seminar hotels in the Paris region are still lagging behind, because they are finding it harder to attract leisure customers.
According to a study recently published by Interface Tourism, corporate event organisers who have focused on France and Europe in recent years are now taking a closer look at far-flung destinations. Could this desire to go further afield have an impact on the incentive business, as it has on the summer season for leisure customers?
Olivier Petit - Without having precise measurements, I have the impression that the incentive is doing well in France. After that, the fact that customers are keen to repeat international incentives is no surprise to me. We are in this logic of revenge tourismNow that the borders are reopening and there are fewer health and administrative hurdles to overcome. The advantage is that it works both ways. More and more French people will be going abroad, and more foreign companies will be coming to France for incentives. The same goes for leisure travellers.
Sustainable development and CSR strategies are among today's top priorities. How do you see this issue developing?
Olivier Petit - This dimension has become more important recently. Customers are increasingly attentive to the carbon impact of their travels. Service companies see travel as one of the biggest levers for reducing their emissions. We're entering a virtuous circle.
What does this mean in terms of hotel real estate?
Olivier Petit - Everyone agrees today that investing in CSR generates a return on investment. A player like Covivio, moreover, sees the tertiary sector decree as a real opportunity and intends to launch a renovation programme in its hotels to meet the 2030 consumption targets. For listed property investors, reducing their carbon footprint is already good for their share price. But there's another benefit: the work also justifies a higher rent share for the operator. The tenant, for his part, reduces his energy bills by limiting his carbon emissions, which is good for his operating account. What's more, the hotel has a better chance of standing out from the crowd by being identified as a good performer not only by customers, but also by future employees. This too is part of a virtuous circle.
Another element linked to sustainable development: could the non-artificialisation of land have an impact on hotel development?
Olivier Petit - In principle, the desire to stop expanding the city may be a problem for the opening of new hotels. But it is not necessarily a brake on the development of tourism and hotel activity. Vinci Immobilier's future developments in the coming years will not involve new construction, but will be through conversion of other types of property assets into hotels. The context is favourable, with, on the one hand, rising vacancy rates in office property and a crisis in the tertiary sector looming on the horizon, and on the other, this desire to avoid artificialising land. Look at what happened during the previous crisis in 2009-2010: many owners opted to convert their office towers into hotel facilities. Today, the trend is more towards redeveloping spaces for mixed use, with ground floor shops, a hotel or even a tourist residence, a fitness centre and a bar. The aim is to offer services and bring life to the tower's residents.
