TravTalk India Online Magazine
Pratima Badhwar, Head of Commercial India & South Asia, Accor, is excited about this year. ‘We will continue with the uptick from domestic markets and explore the potential of tiered cities this year,’ she adds.
Hazel Jain
Accor is “very excited” about 2023! This is going to be a great year in terms of new openings, says Pratima Badhwar, Head of Commercial India & South Asia at Accor. “We opened Novotel Mumbai Andheri Airport early January. This was the first opening of the year. In March, we are going to open two more hotels – we are opening the ibis in Thane and a Novotel in Jodhpur that will expand our footprint in Rajasthan. In terms of luxury, our Raffles Udaipur is in a ramp-up stage right now. We have couple of good luxury hotels in the pipeline. We have signed up Fairmont Udaipur last year, which we will open sometime in 2024, and have earlier this year signed up Fairmont in Shimla, which we are looking to open by early 2026. Our focus now is to expand and diversify across brands, get a lot of luxury and lifestyle brands, along with our premium brands in the country. We are focused on our entire growth pipeline. We will be about 10,700-odd keys in total for the entire portfolio with the new openings,” she says.
Business from tiered cities
Accor is also going to explore tier-II and III cities. “There is a strong demand coming from these markets, specially when it comes to the SME segment. The domestic business that we have seen emerge during the pandemic has come from this segment from cities like Raipur, Bhopal, and Indore. These are some new trending markets for us. We also see a lot of wedding business come from these pockets, a lot of business from manufacturing companies from these cities. So tiered cities are where we are definitely heading to. In fact, last year we signed up two hotels here – one in Bhopal and one in Indore – both Novotels. With these hotels we will initiate our footprint into these markets and help us grow business from these cities,” she adds.
Action plan for 2023
One of the biggest outcomes of the pandemic was the much-needed ADR corrections after a slump in 2020. Badhwar says Accor will continue to grow its ADRs. “That is going to be our biggest focus – to drive business via the ADR route. Occupancies are building strongly and demand is coming in strongly as well. So, we are going to maximise that demand across all channels and ensure that we are putting the right price to our business. We are also focusing on keeping the domestic share of our business intact. We are diversifying our segments of business that we are going into. While the corporate business comes back and that demand builds back to the 2019 potentials, there is a huge focus that we have put on the SME segment, the sports segment, and the wedding segment. This has given us additional forays to drive additional demand. We are not putting all our eggs in one basket,” she adds.
Manpower and training issues
Talent is hottest topic right now across verticals and industries and the hospitality sector was one of the many to take a severe beating during the pandemic with regards to talent. To tackle this issue, Badhwar says, “We are now working on an entirely different strategy of not only hiring but also what we do with regards to retaining them. We saw that the new joinees were often leaving within the first six months. So, we changed the pattern of engaging them. We are ensuring that we are doing regular catch-ups with them, taking their feedback, ensuring that they feel included in the Accor family.”
Weddings and entertainment segments
Weddings will continue to be one of the focus segments for Accor hotels. “It is becoming a bigger and bigger industry and there is a huge focus as we at Accor are also putting on this segment. Moreover, G20 is a huge demand generator in the country right now, which is giving us the right platform on a global front to drive business intro the country. This is not only from a M!CE perspective but also from the FIT and government point of view. Visit India Year 2023 will also give us an impetus from an inbound perspective. These will be interesting addition to the overall mix. Now, with the corporate business coming back, we are seeing good growth from there. SMEs will continue to grow, entertainment and sports are also big segments for us – a trend which is coming up, all thanks to the OTT platform,” Badhwar says.
Sustainability is important
Accor has always been a huge advocate for sustainability. “This is a big initiative for us, and it will become an integral part of our delivery. Last year, we decided to get rid of all our single-use plastic across our hotels. We have done that. We are now working on going into deeper sustainable measures – what are we doing with our purchasing, and where are we buying our raw materials and food supplies from. Are those vendors also sustainable? So, this is a continuous effort, and we are fully committed to driving sustainability across all our hotels,” she says.
