Focus On Making Travelling Experiences Better And Safer: Jean-Michel CASSÉ

The impact of Covid-19 will be worse than the global financial crisis of 2008. Global border closures, airline cancellations and the nationwide lockdown have closed all gateways for hotel and travel sectors, clogging their earnings.

Times like these calls for immediate intervention and attention from the government, resilient and strong leadership in healthcare, business, government and wider society. Steps like deferment in tax structure of the sector and removal of fees for upcoming licences could contribute in bailing out those that may fall through the cracks. At Accor, we believe that from a social point of view, it is important to reinstate confidence amongst people to step out and encourage them to travel, dine and stay at our properties once it is safe to do so. The government can contribute by introducing a national certification for public places, which will provide assurance to people. We know that the industry will rebound, as it always does after any crisis, but we will need government intervention to ensure that travellers feel safe to return to India so that we can reap the benefits of the recovery as soon as possible.

The COVID-19 Impact

The socio-economic impact will be far and wide-reaching and will include the loss of many positions in the industry, potential closure of some hotels when the owners have no cash flow and on-flow impacts to industries which rely on tourism and hospitality (e.g. tour guides, farmers who provide produce to hotels, restaurants and bars, retail outlets, attractions and more). Many economies rely very heavily on tourism and, across the world, it accounts for around 10 per cent of all GDP directly and even more when considering secondary industries which rely on tourism. 

Initially, MICE and wedding segment will be impacted, however, we will notice newer trends in this segment, especially weddings. Since India is known for ‘big fat weddings’, we might either see the guest list go lean or notice increased demand of bigger venues to accommodate the same number of people; keeping in mind social distancing. There will be more demand of open spaces and garden venues and we might notice people focusing on non-auspicious days to avoid clashes and overcrowding. Buffets might take a back seat and you will be served by chefs and staff in gloves. There will be more collaboration amongst venues, planners, chefs to provide a clean and sanitized event. The wedding segment we believe will need more thinking and processing – reengineering the way we look at hosting them. 

ACCOR’s Fight Against The Pandemic

Welcoming, protecting and taking care of others is at the very heart of what we do and who we are. The last couple of months have been unprecedented, with the pandemic affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people across the world.

As we try to navigate through this global novel coronavirus pandemic our properties continue to serve the community. Fairmont Jaipur is engaged in a series of initiatives to directly help the frontline workers. The team donated medical equipment like shower caps, pillow covers and bed sheers to Sawai Mansingh Medical College and Hospital. They also distributed sanitizers, gloves, liquid soap, mineral water bottles to the ACP Traffic Police, Chandpole Police Line and SHO Amer. Pullman and Novotel New Delhi Aerocity distributed food packets at nearby police stations and police check-posts. Movenpick Hotel Colombo, together with the Colombo City Tourist Hotels Association (CCTHA), provided lunch packets to all doctors, nurses, patients and hospital staff of the IDH (Infectious Diseases Hospital), the primary hospital treating all COVID-19 patients. ibis Pune Hinjewadi team distributed gloves, sanitizers and food boxes to policemen in their area. 

ibis Jaipur Civil Lines is hosting a team of hospital staff and ensuring that them a comfortable stay. ibis New Delhi Aerocity provided complete support and assistance to the Delhi Government as a quarantine centre for medical care and observation for the Indian guests who returned from abroad.

In France, Accor has decided to make its services available to front-line medical staff, to all French people engaged and mobilized in the fight against the spread of Covid-19, and to the most vulnerable populations. They have launched The CEDA platform - Coronavirus Emergency Desk Accor - which is a telephone platform that was created to centralize needs. To date, more than 40 of the company’s hotels in France can accommodate up to 2,000 beds for the most vulnerable. In United Kingdom, Accor is supporting the needs of the government, the National Health Service (NHS) and charities. This includes accommodating front line NHS and key workers in some of our hotels as well as opening our doors to provide emergency safe spaces for those without anywhere else to stay. In Australia, we have been hosting quarantined guests who are required to self-isolate after returning from travel and have offered beds for homeless people, women who are victims of domestic abuse and others who are vulnerable at this time. Most of our hotels are also undertaking local initiatives to help their direct communities – with food parcels, care packages,  converting their uniform rooms to sew masks to help those in need, and providing soap to improve sanitation in more vulnerable communities.

Recently, Accor announced its decision to allocate 25 per cent of its planned dividend (€70m) to the launch of the ALL HeartistFund, a Covid-19 special purpose vehicle. This fund will typically assist Accor’s 300,000 employees and in addition, the Group will further deploy its solidarity initiatives to support frontline healthcare professionals and non-profit organizations, and to show our gratitude to the medical professionals who are on the front line.

Road to Speedy Recovery

The hospitality industry is working proactively to prepare recovery plans. The health, safety and well-being of staff, guests and partners will be our top priority as the world progressively relaxes its lockdown measures. The recovery will be a gradual process, taking into consideration the advice and instructions of local authorities. Having said that, the first and foremost preparation will be to develop safety guidelines. This will ensure efficiency, consistency, and measurement of our industry-leading hygiene measures; this will also give our guests reassurance with clear and easily accessible information. Strict hygiene and sanitation measures should be implemented at each hotel and public places. Starting from the most basic like checking temperatures, multiple levels of cleaning and less crowding in public areas will help in creating confidence amongst our guests to travel again. The industry will adapt to new demand and new requirements. We expect people might want to travel differently, in a more responsible and safe way.

Process of Developing

The Accor India and South Asia Executive Committee hosts calls twice a week to ensure alignment of communication and frequent interactions with Leaders, Corporate Offices and General Managers. During this period of lockdown, Accor has hosted a couple of town-hall sessions to keep all the employees informed of the latest development within the group. The VP for Commercial hosts regular calls with all the team members to share updates about all verticals.

Various aspects of the Recovery plan are being formulated in detail to assist the hotels in their reopening approach. This is being spearheaded in coordination with all the General Managers and the respective vertical heads.

The Talent and Cultures teams are working tirelessly to ascertain an action plan of how operations would resume and the implications it would have from an employee perspective. The T&C teams have also been encouraging the staff working from home to utilise this time to up-skill, hone talent and make the most of the several online learning materials that are available.

Accor Academy has collaborated with Cornell University to provide free online learning. The courses they have selected will help employees navigate during these uncertain times and develop their leadership skills.

Detailed checklists, robust communications and ensuring a positive spirit within the team is going to be key to ensure strong implementation of the strategy, which we are in the process of developing. 

Post Pandemic Scenario

When travel resumes, we will see a complete change of expectations and trends amongst the guests. As mentioned earlier, cleanliness and hygiene will be of utmost importance.

At Accor, we have been working with our sanitation partners Diversy with local medical and government authorities to ensure even more regular cleaning protocols to protect the safety and well-being of our guests and staff. We have implemented a very strict and comprehensive outline of measures that all hotels have to follow including frequent cleaning of public spaces, regular sanitation of high-touch points such as elevator buttons and public sitting areas and enhanced cleaning processes for rooms. Considering the norm for social spacing, we will implement new protocols for rooms, restaurants and bars to reassure guests that they can visit our hotels with safe distancing measures in place. We are looking to reconfigure physical spaces, introduce contactless payment, temperature check staff and guests entering our hotels, and keep some rooms clear to ensure our guests are safely spaced. 

The situation we are in is ever-evolving and looking at the current situation, people will initially explore domestic travel. Hotels, airlines, travel agents and experience providers will collaborate to deliver unique and bespoke experiences to promote domestic travel. Additionally, online campaigns and initiatives by the Ministry of Tourism like ‘Dekho Apna Desh’, the focus has already been set to grow domestic tourism. It is expected that the government will be coming up with more such campaigns and push for domestic travel. India has always had fewer international tourists than many of its neighbours but we also rely on these international guests who tend to be more global business travellers and luxury leisure travellers so we should not forget about them in terms of the long-term recovery plans. However, we believe that domestic business traveller, drive travel (within 100kms of home) and domestic leisure travel will be the first to rebound so we need to ensure we are encouraging Indian travellers to explore their own back yard more.

Business Travel will progress faster than leisure travel. Initially, travelling post the pandemic will be mostly for essential businesses and activities and will help business hotels. We have already received a few enquiries from IT and ITeS sectors to accommodate senior team members for good 10-15 days. This demand is coming from various industry and manufacturing heavy cities of India. We believe that economy and midscale hotels will rebound faster than luxury hotels and Accor has a strong network in the economy and midscale hotels.

The world will continue to practice social distancing until the pandemic is controlled to a great extent and this will directly restrict large gatherings. Both MICE and wedding segments will take a step back, however, we are hopeful to see new trends in this sector. Weddings will be a lean and close family affair. For large conferences and meetings, only senior management will get together and use digital platforms. However, we believe that in the long-term large-scale weddings and meetings will return once there is a vaccine as people will always have a human need to connect with others and to celebrate in large gatherings. This is especially true in Indian culture.

Words of Wisdom

This is a very crucial time and as hoteliers, we should make sure to encourage and motivate our employees through regular calls and video conferences to keep them positive through this crisis. Also, the industry should collaborate and plan for the post-lockdown situation and create strategies to instil confidence amongst our guests to continue to travel safely once the lockdown is lifted. 

We are confident that, while hospitality might look a bit different, people will definitely return to their love of travel, meeting, dining and celebrating in our hotels and resorts. It is human nature to want to be with others – our role will be to ensure that it is safe to do so.

Just as 9/11 changed the way we move through airports and airport security, so this might change the way we move through public spaces, at least in the short term until a vaccine is found.

We have already seen some positive signs in China and in South Korea that tell us that people have a strong desire to return to travel and to dining and celebrating in restaurants.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that China is ahead from rest of the world in terms of recovery and our hotels had over 30 per cent occupancy in March, which was from domestic travel only. This number shows that things will get better and we all will be travelling again soon. We all should just focus on making travelling experiences better and safer.