Issenberg highlights that within Asia Pacific, China is not only the most important market but its outbound travellers are a major source of the fuel for this momentum.
AccorHotels seems unstoppable at the moment, as does Asia Pacific, according to Michael Issenberg, chairman and CEO of AccorHotels Asia Pacific. And that’s why the hotel group will be rolling out 350 hotels over the next five years in the region.
Issenberg highlights that within Asia Pacific, China is not only the most important market but its outbound travellers are a major source of the fuel for this momentum.
“Outbound travel by Asians grew 11% in 2016 and China is a key driving force behind this, with 50 million Chinese travelling within Asia Pacific last year,” he said. “China is now the most important outbound market in the world.”
The World Tourism and Travel Council reports that Asia Pacific has been international tourism’s fastest-growing region for a decade, bagging over 25% of all tourism arrivals around the world.
Little surprise that while 27% of AccorHotels’ properties are within Asia Pacific, upcoming hotels to open here in the next five years make up nearly 50% of its total pipeline.
In addition, the significant strategic alliance with Huazhu Hotels Group (China Lodging Group) put AccorHotels in touch with the 90 million members of Huazhu's HRewards program. The group will be using the alliance to cross promote and accelerate the expansion of the Grand Mercure, Novotel, Mercure and ibis brands throughout China.
The group wields 21 hotel brands, the onefinestay sharing economy brand, recently acquired John Paul concierge services and catering firm Potel&Chabot, among others. In fact, an acquisition or partnership has been announced monthly since 2016.
“AccorHotels has always innovated and changed to meet the evolving needs of our guests,” said Issenberg. “Now more than ever we are adapting our business model to ensure that wherever, whenever and however our guests want to travel we can offer them an AccorHotels service to suit their needs. Every business acquisition and merger we are making is being done with the guest in mind.”