Hospitality giant Accor CEO has said the group will see a rapid rebound by late spring and into summer as people look to travel again as vaccine programmes roll out globally, Hotelier Middle East reported Tuesday.
Experts have said there is a plethora of pent-up travel demand as people have been largely stuck at home for a year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“The light is at the end of the tunnel for one reason: We have vaccines. It’s going to be there and it’s for us to grasp. Since a lot of people are going to have it, we know we’re going to be back on the road and we’re going to have a lot of noise in our hotels and bars. We’ll be back in business,” Accor head Sebastien Bazin said in an address to his employees.
Accor, which has around 5,000 hotels across 110 countries, posted net losses in 2020 around $2.4 billion.
“[I’ve] been forced to make some very rational, very difficult decisions. But I’ve been reflecting on the last 12 months and I need to see the glass half full. Everything we went through, both personally and professionally, I cannot look back on it and not be proud and you should be super proud of it too,” Bazin said.
In November, Accor announced its merger with Ennismore was underway, which Bazin said will help the group stay ahead of the competition.
“Our team has an ability to think outside the box. Ennismore is a good example, all those brands collected together, the uniqueness of that little enterprise plus us two years ahead of any of our peers. We’ve accepted all these new concepts,” he said.
Follow us on
