Find here the key moments of our Think Tank. Meet us at the Paris Asset Forum / Hospitality Awards on November 30, 2021.

What is the medium-term economic outlook for 2021/2022? By Christophe Barraud, Chief Economist & Strategist at Market Securities and Vanguélis Panayotis

Christophe Barraud, Chief Economist & Strategist at Market Securities and Vanguélis Panayotis, CEO MKG Consulting and Hospitality ON opened the Global Lodging Forum by tackling the subject of the short-term economic outlook. The overall growth observed is rather auspicious with an increase of 6%.

The focus was on Europe, China and the US, all of which have been heavily impacted by the health crisis but have reacted differently. Thanks to the vaccination campaigns, the recovery continues to be positive, particularly in Europe. As for the recovery of a Chinese clientele, Vanguélis Panayotis reminds us that if we lose a clientele, another one can take over.

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Trends observed by leboncoin, Loïs de Jorna Co-founder, Pilgo and commercial director, Next-leboncoin

Leboncoin generates 30 million unique visitors.

The average basket of French people for the summer of 2021 was down with a very high proportion of ultra-last minute bookings. New Aquitaine, the Southern region and Occitania were the top three destinations for the summer.

62% of users want to go on holiday this winter with a preference for France.

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MKG Insights: After the crisis, how is the hotel sector doing? Adrien Lanotte Senior Analyst, MKG Consulting

Leisure and individual customers are driving the recovery. The shortfall is in group customers, whether corporate or leisure. Their presence on the territories has been very heterogeneous with a strong attendance of the coasts and rural areas to the detriment of the cities.

The proportion of vaccinated populations in developing countries is increasing, which secures a part of the emitting markets.

Before Covid 19, 42% of bookings were made one month in advance, after Covid 19, this proportion rose to 63%. Will these habits be sustainable? Will they extend to business customers?

In France in 2022, MKG Consulting anticipates a drop of 8% in RevPAR compared to 2019. This figure should be adjusted according to the market. This drop will reach -14% in the first half of the year. This puts the market back on the performance level of 2014.

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After the health risk, the cyber risk? Understanding the challenges of digital risks. Miguel Fernandez-Blanco Head of Strategy & Innovation, Atos

Covid 19 has raised issues that we had not imagined. This crisis has accelerated digitalisation by 5 to 7 years. Just 10 years ago, we weren't talking about the cloud, big data, blockchain... But in the meantime, the big bang of big data has happened, so cybersecurity is a subject that concerns us all.

Because cybercrime is evolving just as fast and from 2022, the distribution and production sectors will be the most attacked. In particular, supply chain attacks are becoming increasingly common and pose many problems due to the number of subcontractors in the hospitality sector.

The conclusion on the green aspect shows that today the digital world produces far more greenhouse gases than air traffic, which has been singled out in recent years with the flagshaming phenomenon.

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Attractiveness of talents for the hospitality sector. What are the societal challenges? Julia de Funès, Speaker, Doctor of Philosophy and Author

We are currently in a procedural ideology, where everything is automated, and it would be good to remedy this so as not to fall into companies with dehumanised employees. The health crisis, which is a time of rupture, represents a great opportunity to innovate in the management sector.

We must not let fear dictate our choices and make us too prejudiced. Procedures should facilitate action, not undermine it. And in contrast to this procedural ideology, we find the spirit of innovation which is based on 3 principles: 

• Risk-taking
• Meaning
• Trust in oneself and in others

These are all intrinsically human qualities that are part of the hospitality sector, a sector with a future because AI can never replace humans in this sector. 

China partners, competitors or rivals? Pascal Lamy, President of the Paris Peace Forum, Special Advisor to the European Commission

We are at the end of an era that started in the 1980s when we were in a happy globalisation. During this period, geo-economics prevailed over geopolitics, but now this phenomenon is reversed as geopolitics is taking over.

The health crisis has accentuated this change and the divisions have become more pronounced, particularly between the north and the south with the vaccination campaigns. The system is thus becoming more complex but also more unstable.

China has undergone a real change in 30 years with the 2008 crisis on the one hand, but also the arrival of a new, more communist and nationalist leader on the other hand. Behind the growth of this country lies an ambition to conquer and develop know-how.

Today, China is an economic partner, a competitor on the international markets, but also a rival on the ideological level since the country is an authoritarian regime and not a democracy like the European countries.

MKG Insights : Megatrends. Where will the growth of the next cycle be? Adrien Lanotte

The levers for future growth are based on two main axes:

• Expansion
• Strategic changes

The expansion of hotel portfolios is therefore the first pillar of value creation. New services such as coworking and coliving also add value to the offerings.

Currently the largest hotel markets in the world are the US and China with a significant hotel portfolio in their own territory. However, there are also relatively interesting markets for future development such as Asia Pacific excluding China and sub-Saharan Africa.

We have also seen deals pick up in recent months, such as the acquisition of Hyatt by Amresors after a rather quiet period due to the health crisis. In addition, a good number of the brands involved in these deals appear in the world's top 20 resorts with the leisure segment being the real driver of the recovery.

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Standing out from the crowd in the age of hypercommunication. Vincent Quandalle, Managing Director France, B&B Hotels & Georges Mohammed-Chérif, President and Creative Director, Buzzman

B&B Hotels launched a large-scale TV communication campaign at the end of June 2020 after the release of the first containment with the help of the communication company Buzzman. This was a strategic choice because the purchase spaces were relatively affordable at the time and also few competitors were planning to communicate for budgetary reasons.

Boldness, risk-taking and a strong bias being the watchwords at Buzzman, this campaign stands out and goes beyond the somewhat classic codes. Humour is the order of the day while emphasising the fundamentals of a hotel, namely the quality of the bedding and the breakfast.

Even if this campaign was intended to be innovative and disruptive, it was still important to remain true to the brand and not to try to disguise it.

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The design revolution of a brand: the case of Novotel. Nadège Dumont Keryhuel, Global Vice President Novotel, Accor & Frédéric Alzeari, Creative Director, RF STUDIO & Bittor Sanchez-Monasterio, Vice President Design Eco & Midscale Global, Accor

Innovation is in the DNA of the Novotel brand and the dynamism of its current development demonstrates this. A vast work on the design of the brand's hotels has therefore been launched with RF Studio in particular.

The midscale world allows us to be ever more innovative and to free ourselves from the constraints of the luxury world. The group's ambition is to be multidisciplinary with, among other things, spaces that are more open to the neighbourhood, and hotels are no longer reserved for people who stay there.

The design therefore makes it possible to transmit the values of the brand with, nevertheless, a great diversity of design depending on the hotels, allowing flexibility according to the spaces available. The hotel thus becomes a real place to live.

Novotel intends to replace the reception lobbies in social hubs in a quest for more convivial spaces on a human scale. The sustainable commitment is just as important with a pilot where the hotel concepts will be analysed on their carbon footprint emissions.

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The story of a project from a developer's perspective: The Kimpton Paris. Henry Simpson, Director of Development France, Belgium, French-speaking Switzerland and Turkey, IHG Hotels & Resorts

Henry Simpson told the story and the genesis of the Kimpton Hotel which opened just a month ago in Paris in the Opera district. The building is a former luxury samaritan with art nouveau architecture. The hotel features a roof top with a view of the opera and rooms decorated in a Parisian flat style.

The concept of the brand consists of very lifestyle, arty and young hotels that correspond to a relaxed luxury. By choosing a new, more modern brand, the group decided to take a step to the side, which has paid off, as in a few months more than 300 articles have been written about this new hotel.

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Industry Leaders Keynote. Maud Bailly, CEO Southern Europe, Accor & Marcus Bernhardt, CEO, Deutsche Hospitality & Karin Sheppard, SVP & Managing Director Europe, IHG Hotels & Resorts

Hotel performance this summer has been very good with booking levels and average baskets higher than those recorded in 2019. The picture is more mixed for cities as they are more reliant on MICE which has not yet fully recovered.

The summer season was driven by a domestic leisure clientele, with 9 out of 10 French people staying in France during the holidays. The return to normal for international customers is expected by 2024.

According to Maud Bailly, 8 major trends have been observed:

• Health reassurance
• Hybridization in addition to digitalization (digital key, QR code, online check)
• Flexibility and new nomadic "workspitality
• Personalization and experiential
• Health and well-being in the broad sense (nutrition, sport, spa, etc.)
• Meaning (ecology, diversity, solidarity) the raison d'être of travel will grow
• Recruitment issues in the HR sector
• The role of the manager

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For its part, Deutsche Hospitality has taken advantage of the period of confinement to prepare the evolution of its brand, in particular with a rather unusual partnership with the Porsche group in a lifestyle brand idea.

The group's objective is to become one of the most important European players with the ambition of owning 700 hotels by 2027. The group has therefore chosen to move from a culture of control to a culture of trust in its new transformation strategy, which has 4 pillars: 

• Brand and commercial 
• Technology
• Development in general
• CSR and team management

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As for IHG Hotels & Resorts, which is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Intercontinental brand this year, the objective is to improve their visibility and brand image. And according to Karin Sheppard, having a broad portfolio of brands is an opportunity because it helps to meet the needs of different markets.

The group has just added the Vignette Collection brand to this portfolio and at the same time affirmed its ambition to develop in the French market, which is a prime market for it.

Finally, the group has adopted a new strategy called "On the road to tomorrow", which focuses strongly on sustainable development with, for example, the reduction of carbon emissions, the elimination of single-use items and the reduction of food waste.

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