Accor Hotels is working on a new portal that it hopes will increase its web direct sales globally from the current 12% to 25% by 2012.

Yeoh Siew Hoon catches up with the group's e-commerce head, Romain Roulleau, to find out how it intends to do that.

Senior vice president-e-commerce for the group, Romain Roulleau, is working on a rollout for the new Accorhotels.com by September. "While my role is to develop Web direct sales for the organisation, we also want to work with partners to drive online sales in general," he stressed, on a recent visit to Singapore.

He admits the hotel group has been rather a late starter in the e-commerce game, compared to other global groups such as Starwood, Marriott or InterContinental. This was because it lacked a loyalty programme but with the launch of its frequent loyalty programme, AClub, all the wheels are in motion to make e-commerce a priority for the company.

Features in the new portal would include access to ancillary services such as car rental – it signed a partnership with EuropCar recently – and some sort of trip planning and destination guide tool.

As to whether Accorhotels.com would carry exclusive content that would not be made available to its OTA partners, Roulleau said it was about striking the right commercial deal with partners.

"We are building a portal for someone who is looking for a hotel, not just another Accor hotel, so we have to be everywhere."

Roulleau is still thinking about how to integrate social media elements into the site. "Reviews or Facebook or Twitter? We need to have a position on that – that will give customers access to information they can base their decision-making process on.

"I am not sure they generate revenues as such. Yes, they generate traffic and reputation – although I don't think anybody can say, ‘I control my reputation on the web'."

Roulleau, who worked in the Online Travel Agency (OTA) space before he joined Accor, said things were changing so quickly on the web that nobody can predict with any accuracy the outcome of any new trend.

"I've been in the business for 10 years and everytime someone's said this will happen in three or four years time, they have been wrong. Social media – three or four years ago, it didn't even exist but look at how fast it has taken hold.

"We have to understand the difference between a trend and a fad. Second Life was a fad, it died so quickly."

One clear trend, however, is the decline of commissions. "It started with airlines which are no longer paying commissions. Hotel chains pay a lot of commissions still. The longterm trend is obvious – commissions will come down. Everyone in the value chain, including OTAs and travel agencies, will have to find other revenue streams," said Rolleau.

In the execution of Accorhotels.com, he said it was key to have a global strategy with local application. "Each market has to have its own application. We have 24 versions of our website based on the country not the language."

This distinction is important because customers are differentiated by country. "We have to speak to the local customer and customize content and speak with relevance to the origin of the customer."

In Asia, it will roll out local versions in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia by September.

Sometimes it works the other way round – from local and regional initiative to global adaptation. For instance, the Accor Super Sale was initiated by Accor Asia Pacific and the initiative adapted to other regions and countries. In May and June, Accor ran four to five Super Sales in Europe.

The Ibis Idol Thailand campaign, launched recently, is another example of a successful local initiative and application.

Said Roulleau, "The overall objective is clear – it's trying to get cut through in every channel and be wherever the consumer wants us to be."

Note: Romain Roulleau will be speaking at WIT, Oct 20-23, 2009.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com

Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders.

4Hoteliers is the "Official Daily News" of WIT09

www.webintravel.com