During WiT Virtual, Louise Daley, deputy CEO, APAC, Accor was very realistic about the harsh realities being faced by the hospitality industry – poor occupancy rates, declining RevPAR, staff redundancies and furloughs.

However, she also pointed out areas worthy of optimism in the sector. She identified new areas of opportunity in technology, what sectors could do to revive themselves, and what lasting effects the crisis could have on how companies operate.

Asia first to be hit, may be first to recover

In its first quarter results, Accor announced a 17% decrease year-over-year in revenues to 768m Euros, the closure of 62% of its properties, a drop of 25.4% in RevPAR and that it had furloughed or put on temporary leave 220,000 people, about 70-75% of its workforce.

The impact in Asia was harder in the first quarter, said Daley, with RevPAR down earlier in the year. “In China, we were already facing this before Chinese New Year… we went to single digit occupancies in China through February and March. Then it started to spread across Asia… It was like this tsunami that started to come,” said Daley.

She also remarked that while Asia was the worst hit, it was also the earliest, so by the same token, she expects the APAC market to recover first. She commended how many governments in Asia responded “responsibly, quickly and rationally.”

Daley argued that watching and learning from the countries that emerge first would be very valuable in determining how companies should react and respond. Looking at China and Korea as the first markets to see ‘green shoots’ of recovery, as well as New Zealand and Australia, she said they were in a position of strength because of their large domestic markets.

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