“It’s the right question to ask at this time, and it’s something that we’re talking about a lot at the moment,” Williams told micenet last Thursday, in response to the question of the war’s impact.
“I guess the real answer is it’s a little bit too early to tell. It depends on what happens over the next few weeks and months, and that can vary quite widely.
“At the moment, if I look at our numbers, our numbers have been really strong.
“There’s been a very strong start to the year, very much an event-led start to the year in Australia in most major capitals.
“Our position at the moment still looks good, and the rest of the year is still, on our numbers, looking terrific.
“But it would be naive to think that if the war continues or escalates that there wouldn’t be an impact, and we’re certainly looking at it closely,” Williams said.
He said that given the Australian hotel market was largely handling domestic business, “there’s probably less direct impact”.
He said that Accor recently had to move its team out of its office in Dubai, due to the conflict, given the office’s close proximity to an American organisation that may have been a target.
Accor has properties throughout the Middle East, but Williams agreed it was a good time to be a French-owned company in the current situation, although worries remained.
“What we are concerned about is if it [the war] is extended and there is further risk to fuel, that will have impacts, of course, on freight and air travel and anything fuel-related, but also on manufacturing, which impacts right across the supply chain. And then input costs going up has an impact on the industry more broadly.”
Williams acknowledged that there were potentially many things that could increase costs, and ultimately they would get passed on, but he also said, “our figures at the moment remain positive”.
micenet asked whether it was fair to say that Accor’s rates were holding at the moment.
“Certainly, rates are holding, and that’s because we haven’t seen any material shift in demand. And the year, as I said, started strongly. It’s been event-led, and performance over events has always been quite positive, and we don’t see that changing at the moment.”
“We’re really happy with performance across the Pacific and in Australia in particular. With more than 400 hotels now, we’ve got 23 of our brands deployed across all sectors of the hotel industry. And we’re optimistic really right across the board.”
Following recent years of new hotel openings by major brands in mainland capitals, micenet questioned whether the hotel landscape in Australia was now stable or whether there was still room to move.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it stable,” said Williams.
“I’d call it interesting, dynamic, exciting. The industry, I wouldn’t call consolidated either. You’ve got certainly a lot of activity from the big global players.
“There’s a lot of activity in Australia from all of the major players. You’ve also got a lot of independents, and 55 per cent of the market are independents.
“Certainly, from an Accor perspective, one in five Australians is a member of our loyalty program. It’s a pretty powerful engine and something that is quite irresistible if you’re looking to supercharge performance,” he said.
While Accor had started in Australia as a hotel owner and a builder of hotels, that had shifted.
“We took that expertise into managing hotels, and now we also offer brand distribution and loyalty for our franchise hotels. So, we’re right across the spectrum.
“And there’s nothing we love more than working with owners and helping them achieve their investment thesis. And that’s really what we do provide. We provide branding, distribution and loyalty, access to a global market.”
