Yoshiu Hoon
BANGKOK — Thailand is expected to receive 36.1 million tourists this year, down from 39.9 million in 2019, with tourism expected to fully recover by 2025.
And if you haven’t visited here recently, you’ll be amazed at how much the Thai capital has changed.
With the global interest in wellness and wellness and the legalization of marijuana in the area, this chaotic and bustling city is home to not only street vendors but also wellness centers and cannabis shops. The city is a place where tradition and modernity coexist and continues to impress foreign tourists.
I had just come out of RAKxa Integrated Wellness Retreat in Bang Krachao, known as the Green Lung of Bangkok, where I met an alternative medicine therapist who recommended a number of treatments, most of which involved me lying down for three days and receiving the most relaxing and healing treatments.
And from RAKxa, I headed to Movenpick BDMS Wellness Resort Bangkok, an Accor-managed hotel owned by BDMS Wellness Centre, the preventive medicine arm of Bangkok Hospital, which is opening wellness centres across the country.
It was there that I met Benoit Racle and Jean-Yves Minet, just a day after being introduced as Accor’s new Global Brand Presidents for Premium, Midscale and Economy brands. Both were introduced to Accor’s Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific commercial teams gathered in Bangkok.
Racle is geared towards premium, including Pullman, Swissotel, Movenpick, Angsana and Peppers brands. Minet is geared towards mid-sized and economy, including Novotel, Mercure, Tribe, Handwritten Collection, Ibis, Ibis Styles, Ibis Budget and Greet.
Deluxe Suite bedroom at Movenpick BDMS Wellness Resort Bangkok. Photo courtesy of Accor
Transfer to Accor
Minette joins Accor after 14 years at Estée Lauder Companies, where she led an $8.5 billion international business. I asked her why she left beauty and cosmetics for the hospitality industry.
“I’ve always been interested in travel. I spent six years in travel retail. Everything we sell in duty free has always been about travel routes and consumer tastes,” he said.
“Travel is a very tempting opportunity for me. It’s one of the few opportunities where demand exceeds supply, but it’s very competitive,” he added. “There are growing opportunities for emerging consumers to gain wealth in markets like China, Turkey and India. The middle class is rising, and travel is the biggest desire for emerging consumers. Growth is almost guaranteed. What’s most exciting is how we can exceed it.”
Meanwhile, Raykel entered the hotel industry at age 15, working in the front office of a small hotel before honing his skills at Starwood and W. “I’ve been a chef, a security guard, a general manager. Seeing guests smile and be happy is what drives me. I will never leave this industry.”
He was drawn to Accor’s culture and the way it takes care of its people. “COVID has been heartbreaking,” he said. “We’ve had to stop working with a lot of people. We’ve lost about 45% of our workforce in North America. Accor has shown that they take care of people, and now we have to bring people back into the business.”
Because the two had different backgrounds, their introductions to their new roles were also different.
Racle spent a month traveling around the world, visiting brand teams and properties. “I wanted to understand the culture, what it meant to work with Accor for its teams and owners, and the nuances of each market. It was exhausting but refreshing to hear that at this point in my career.
“The second priority is to ask, what is our five-year plan? Building a brand takes time. It’s a long-term vision.”
Minette spent her time at hotels, working in the kitchen, cleaning rooms and front desks for her “introduction.” “I learned the business by trying to understand the flow of hotels, how they operate, how they translate the value proposition of each brand into an experience. How do we constantly innovate, solidify the fundamentals and invest in the future to offer consumers something new? What will Ibis look like in 20 years? That’s the question we need to ask now.” (The Ibis brand, which is described as “vibrant, casual and friendly,” has 1,278 hotels and 158,793 rooms.)
Focus on the consumer
What’s important to both executives is not the number of brands they have to manage, but to always maintain a consumer-centric approach.
“Consumers are looking for experiences. Travel is all about experiences,” Minnett said. “Beauty is a physical product. The big difference is whether you add an experience before or after the purchase. And in a world where there’s an abundance of physical products, what makes the difference is when brands create an emotional connection through an experience.
“The answer always lies with the consumer. It’s about knowing the consumer better,” he continued. “In beauty, we do research and product development. We launch 10 to 15 new products a year, and there are different levels of innovation in them. There’s packaging, there’s new formulas, there’s sophisticated storytelling. I want to apply that knowledge to hospitality. What does sampling mean in hospitality?”
Raykel’s goal is “to make sure our brand aligns with the perspectives we want to support.”
With W, he had one brand to focus on and he developed a very clear positioning for the brands he operated at Marriott. He admitted that it was difficult to create a single positioning for eight different brands.
“We need to build brands that are built with one consumer in mind, for that specific individual. There’s nothing worse than a brand that’s not differentiated. Can we shift from location-based to brand-based so that people are willing to travel a little further to stay with the brand they love?”
In many ways, this will do well to diversify tourism, which is desperately needed in some destinations. What role does the hotel company play in moving development from prime locations to more remote areas that may not make financial sense from a real estate perspective?
“Well, that’s what my guests are asking for,” Rakul said. “Take me to places I haven’t been, places with fewer people, places where I can have a purpose and an impact.”
This generational shift in consumer behavior will have implications for hotel retail and distribution. I asked Minet what the hotel industry can learn from the beauty industry in this regard.
“Accor is also very good at retailing, a lot of their business is web direct. The beauty (pun intended) of the hotel business is that it can really be multichannel, like beauty. There is no one consumer buying from one place. The only difference is that in beauty, the product is the same, especially on the premium side. In travel, everything is delivered through a local experience. A Mercure that is ‘local’ will be different in Indonesia than in Italy.
“There’s a growing desire among brands to grow their own channels because they can connect with their customers directly and build relationships.”
“That’s our brand promise,” Rakul added. “When you book direct with us, we give you the best price, we know you, we value you. That’s our promise.”
This is where loyalty comes in, he said. “Consumers are looking for bigger loyalty programs. That’s why hotel groups are building brands within the ecosystem. Our job is to embrace consumers at different stages of their lives so we can grow with them.”
Photo credit: Web in Travel
Which brands will catch your attention?
Asked which brand he was most excited about, Minette said: “I don’t know all the brands yet, but Novotel, Accor’s parent company, has the most heritage. It embodies everything about hospitality. It has the strong DNA, the financial muscle and the capital to serve the traveler.”
He also mentioned Greet, a “locally engaged, collective, circular hospitality” brand, mostly in France, which has 36 hotels and 2,499 rooms. Greet also has a presence in Austria and Germany, with a Brussels opening coming soon.
“It’s a very interesting positioning for a very specific consumer, using recycled materials, including the beds and the furniture, and the staff are ‘second lifers’ from marginalized communities,” Minette added. “There’s a social element to it, and there’s a lot of potential. There are a lot of people who are interested in how they consume.”
“Luxury, hospitality, fashion and art come together to create unique experiences,” says Reichel, who cites the “pioneer and innovative” Pullman, which was founded in 1900 and has 157 hotels and 44,624 rooms worldwide.
“We are repositioning ourselves as a more socially open brand for the culturally savvy traveler, taking the best of iconic hospitality with social spaces and amazing programming. I saw the first new Pullman in São Paulo and am excited to see where the brand goes.”
