A Unique Digital Ecosystem for Hotel Owners

Digital transformation is all about making people’s lives easier. At Accor, this ambition embraces three keys targets: Hotel Guests, Hotel Owners and Accor Teams. Over the past years, Accor’s innovation has focused on improving the experience of those targets with a mind set on “usage dogma”, meaning streamlining processes, providing the best services and developing loyalty and business.

Today, Christine Ravanat focuses on Hotel Owners and Accor Teams, explaining the innovative digital ecosystem we have implemented to magnify Hotel Owners’ experience and empower teams handling the relationship with those owners. We have built a unique ecosystem, with MAX our website and app dedicated to Hotels Owners and WeMAX a platform supporting our team’s relationship managementwith owners.

Whose Experience Are We Impacting?

We are talking about a BtoB relation, the one between Accor teams and current or potential Hotel Owners.

Hotel Owners - Without Owners to deal franchise or management agreements, there would simply be no Accor hotel network. Therefore, Owners are Accor’s very first customers, and their expectations receive close attention. <…>

Accor teams - On the Accor side, about 300 players interact with European Hotel Owners. We divide them in three groups with specific needs.

• The Developers; they are the hunters; their purpose is to expand the hotel network. They prospect new hotel opportunities, negotiate the deal and sign the agreement with the Owner.
• The second group are the Operations; they are the farmers, they follow the run of the hotel once it is part of Accor’s network. Their purpose is to sustain the performance of the property, by coordinating all the Accor resources and demonstrating value to the Owner.
• The last group are the Solution Experts; they are knowledgeable about services answering specific hotel needs, such as maximizing revenue, mastering costs, easing operation or empowering hotel staff. Their purpose is to provide relevant answers to Hotel Owners’ needs.

Improving the experience of Hotel Owners and Accor teams is our focus, MAX and WeMAX are the way we do it.

MAX to Magnify Hotel Owners’ Experience

In sales and business relations, the human touch remains essential in building trust and loyalty. While human relation is crucial, digital platforms can also play an important facilitation role. This is what MAX is all about: a one-stop shop website and app dedicated to Hotel Owners, simplifying access to the wide range of information, reports, and services, to better assess their business and better interact with Accor Teams.

WeMAX to Empower Accor Teams

Accor teams interact with Hotel Owners throughout the hotel lifecycle: from hotel prospecting, deal negotiating, contract signing, hotel opening, operating, solutions upselling and to contract renewing.

They have two goals toward Hotel Owners: expanding the Accor hotel network and optimizing the hotel brand performance. This requires many topics to follow-up with Owners and coordinate internally. Here is where digital assets support our teams. Indeed, WeMAX is a platform meant for all Accor Teams working with Owners. It provides them with valuable knowledge on the Owners’ past, present and potential activity and allows a sharing of this information among teams – the We of WeMAX stands for Accor Teams.