Strategic Marketing: AccorHotels Case Study Analysis and Solutions

This case study analyzes AccorHotels and its challenges in adapting to digital disruption. The assignment addresses how AccorHotels should redesign its organization to manage the changing customer experience across pre-, during, and post-stay phases, including new roles for content monitorin...Read More

Running head: STRATEGIC MARKETING
Strategic Marketing
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Table of Figures
1. Figure 1 …………………………………………………………………………….. Page 2
2. Figure 2 …………………………………………………………………………...... Page 3
3. Figure 3 ……………………………………………………………………………...Page 4
4. Figure 4 ……………………………………………………………………………...Page 8
5. Figure 5 ……………………………………………………………………………...Page 11

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1- As a senior executive at AccorHotels, how would you change the design of your
organization to cope with the challenges brought about by digital disruption? Consider
the different stages of the customer experience in the hotel (e.g., pre-, post-experience).
What would be the new roles/tasks required to monitor and manage content? How
would you design the organization to handle those roles/ tasks?
Traditionally the business of the AccorHotels have depended on word-to-mouth and customer
loyalty programs. Customers who came and enjoyed their services generally tended to come
back for the repeat experience and hospitality (Jarzabkowski, Bednarek and Cabantous 2015).
The customer segment that AccorHotels target are all inclusive as they have hotels in
economy, midscale and luxury sectors of hotel industry. The total number of rooms in total
all over the world controlled by Accor is 510,000 in 3,900 hotels. The percentage of room
segmentation in the market and the comparison with other luxury hotel chains is given in the
following table:
Figure 1
Source: Case Study

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Due to the emergence of digital platforms like, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, Booking.com and
Expedia, a change has become necessary in the design of the organization to maintain the
competitive advantage in the market. The following graph shows the shift in power and
impact of Airbnb, TripAdvisor and Expedia on the market:
Figure 2
Source: Case Study
In this context the customer experience that the hotel offers must be considered. The
experience has three phases- the pre stay experience, the experience during the stay and the
post experience. All of these aspects constitute the overall hotel experience where the
customers create opinions depending on each aspect (Salvioni 2016). The pre stay experience
constitutes the pricing and amenities that that the hotel offers, the conversation that goes on
with the hotel executives, the offers and deals that they get and the welcoming of the guests.
The experience during the stay is consisted of the room quality, view, room services, food
quality and tours that the hotel might arrange for the customers. The post experience
constitutes the experience that they gather after leaving the sight, the recollection, the
memories and further feedback that the hotel gather and also the further deals that the hotel

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gives for future stays. All these aspects are needed for creating a loyal customer base.
Recently it has been seen that the populkarity and profit of Accor is decresing. In the
following figure, the decreasing trend and popularity of Accord is shown:
Figure 3
Source: Case study of Accor
By introducing a digital platform like an official website and discussion forum, both these
aspects can be covered. The website will enable the customers to book rooms independently
without the help of Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) (Demirçiftçi and Kızılırmak 2016). The
deals and offers that the hotel offers to their loyal customers should be made exclusive for the
site so that the charges that OTAs incur could be avoided. Along with these facilities, the
public forum can be used to get customer reviews and surveys by creating polls which would
provide important information on the customer satisfaction. Along with this they can keep
track of the discussion that is going on in the internet about the hotel and use the information
for further development and planning.

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There will some new roles and positions that are needed to be created in the organization. To
manage the online portals and forums, a team of experts need to be appointed to manage all
these tasks and turn the data that they collect into effective information. They are also
responsible to track the discussion that is going on about the hotel in other public and social
media platforms. Questionnaires and surveys should be conducted online to maintain
customer engagement and satisfaction (Manchester 2017). The hotel should also involve in
collaborations and contracts with other local agents and airlines to provide the customers a
better experience.
The design of the organization needs to be centralized. The focus here is the digital aspect.
All the other organs should be changed according to the reviews and feedbacks, data and
information that are gathered from the internet. Thus, a Centralized Design will be most
applicable as AccorHotels have both self-owned and managed hotels and setting a standard
will be necessary at the beginning (Baker 2019).
2- How can you encourage systematic content creation about AccorHotels? How should
this practice be triggered and/or rewarded? Looking at supporting material D4,
consider how AccorHotels can improve its feedback processes and potentially use these
to help generate new content. Then, with the content gathered, where and how should
user-generated content (UGC) be leveraged (e.g., AccorHotels’ own website, an OTA,
social media?)? What kinds of partnerships could AccorHotels leverage or engage in to
reach these goals?
For systematic content creation, the first initiative has to be taken by the hotel itself. A
content and SEO marketing team should be created so that they can create polls, discussions
and threads that would instigate the customers to talk about the hotel and its experience. The
benefit of doing this is that whenever people go through online research, they will find the

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website of AccorHotels at the top (Grotte 2018). The web team will also be responsible for
the creation of social media content, blogs and posts that will further instigate the discussion.
The customers should be asked to share their experience through survey which can then be
posted on the website to create a more genuine impact.
This practice of systematic content creation can be triggered through training. AccorHotels
should train their staff and web team to incorporate the reviews and feedback response in
their daily job profile. They need to understand the importance of customer reviews and
satisfaction. Nowadays customers are less patient and are less likely to give a second chance
if they are severely disappointed. Training the staff with online activities will make them
more receptive to the changes. They are needed to be made aware of the emerging
competitors and what they are doing to appeal to the customers (Avery, Dev and O'Connor
2015). The OTA’s provide facilities like paying at the property, free cancellation and assisted
service through the booking and staying experience that gives the customers further
satisfaction.
Building a new website and social platform like Facebook pages, twitter account are
extremely necessary if AccorHotels wants to improve the feedback process (Murphya et al.
n.d.). Survey sites like Booking.com and TripAdvisor can be used to generate opinions about
user experience.
AccorHotels should also consider collaborating with some Online Travel Agents or OTAs to
enhance their business. The statistics presented in the case study shows that the turnover of
AccorHotels is decreasing thus this step might prove to be useful in increasing their profit
turnover even after paying the OTAs the solicitation charge that they incur (Baker 2019).

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The information thus gathered can be used in the AccorHotels website and other online
platforms to market their property. This information will increase their rating and keep their
listings at the top of their page resulting to an increased booking from online sources.
3- Imagine you are in Olivier’s shoes and aim to develop a strategic understanding of
customer reviews that can affect other customers.
− Using your own experience, retrace the steps you took for a recent trip, from its initial
conception to the post-trip recollection and reminiscing. List the steps you went through
to create a map of the typical customer journey in the traveling industry.
− Map the type of information you used along the way and the sources of information
(i.e., media sources) that you used for each stage of the customer journey.
− Using the map that you have created, at every stage, what kind of content and which
media (digital and non-digital) would be most effective to reach customers?
Recently, I took a trip for 5 days. Before the conduct of the trip there were several processes
that I went through to ensure that the experience that I have is pleasant and memorable. The
first stage was Awareness or the Dreaming stage (Schuckert, Liu and Law 2015). Due to
hectic schedule of everyday life I wanted to get out from the city and enjoy some days in
leisure and contentment. This instigated me to search for places that will give me those
experiences. I did not want to live at a remote place where it would be difficult for me to
arrive at my city if any emergencies should arise. I decided to search over the internet to find
out the best places for rejuvenation. This phase, known as Consideration, I conducted Online
search and looked into review sites to plan my tour. They gave me a fair idea about the
costing that I would have to bear. I looked into different hotels and finally chose the ones that
I felt was most optimum. In this planning stage I considered many things and finally decided

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that a luxury hotel and business class flight will be most appropriate as I was taking a leisure
trip to unwind myself. Finally I decided on the hotels and travelling options and booked
them. During the planning also gathered information about the upcoming events or festivals
that might be happening around the place so that I could mingle with locals a little bit and
enjoy the culture. The whole experience was pleasant enough and upon returning I still
cherish the memories that the experience had brought me. The following figure shows the
different stages of a customer’s journey:
Figure 4
Source: Google
The type of information that I used along the way were, information about different places
that give the experience that I wanted to have. After that I gathered information about the
hotels and travel options, their prices, and compared them, I asked many of my friends
whether they had visited the place and took reviews from them. During the procedure most of
the information that I gathered and used were from the internet and word-of-mouth.
From the above map, it is evident that the dreaming and booking process is most effective
through digital media. It enables the customers to tap into options easily and compare the

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prices and services along with the reviews. For the planning process, both the digital and non-
digital media can be used (Demirçiftçi and Kızılırmak 2016).
4- Consider customers’ motivations when sharing content and come up with strategies
that can motivate customers to share their experiences to fill in the missing attributes
you put up above. What would you do to improve the presence of your hotel across
social media? Use dataset D3 as a basis for discussion.
It has been seen that customers are more likely to share their bad experiences rather than the
good experiences. It is a challenge to influence the customers to share their positive
experiences and feedbacks (Xiang et al. 2015). There are several ways to motivate the
customers to share their views. The first way is consistency. For most hospitality sector,
consistency is lacking. Most hotels fail to deliver memorable service consistently. The special
treatment that they receive every time they visit AccorHotels is going to make them feel
special. Their experience can be made more memorable by giving personalised items to the
customers. The information regarding the customer’s preferences can be collected through
social media research and Google search data. It is also necessary to make the review and
feedback process more systematic and short. Long processes that include many questions and
longer questions tire the customers out and they are less likely to answer. The review process
should be presented when the customers are checking out (Leung et al. 2013). It should be
conducted in a precise or timely manner so that the customers are done with the reviews
within the completion of the whole end process. Interacting with the customers during their
stay and asking them personally about their experiences are also helpful. The customers
create a sense of trust towards those managers and are likely to share positive feedbacks
because of that. The questionnaires and survey forms should be precise and short. The
questions that are included should be specific and related to the experience and feedback that
would enable them to improve their services.

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In order to increase the presence of AccorHotels in social media, the web team should make a
strategy and choose appropriate networks that would help them realize their goals. The
content creation is also important. The team should create relevant and interesting content
and publish them on social media and other online portals as well as their own websites so
that customers can share their views opinion and experiences (Segal 2015). Regular posts via
Facebook, tweeting their current news and events would help to create a continuous presence
in the minds of the customers.
5- AccorHotels has various hotel brands across different levels and countries. What
would the best way be to manage the organization for e-reputation performance? Is the
centralized management structure adopted so far in other industries relevant and
appropriate for AccorHotels? If not, why not, and what type of organizational structure
would you suggest?
Due to the scattered nature of the hotels in different countries it is difficult to create one
single system that would control the process worldwide. Thus, the best way to manage the
system would be to create regional teams. This process will enable the organization to
include the locals into the team thus making the team more effective and efficient in dealing
the people working in the hotel. Though most of them are likely to come from a hospitality
background and education, local input and language knowledge is always helpful. Moreover,
educating the staffs that have no knowledge of online and web based activities will be
helpful. The e-reputation performance largely depend upon the responses that the
management gives to the discussions and complaints (Alexieva 2016). It is necessary that the
management team is made aware of that fact and are trained to respond to criticism and
complaints in a welcoming manner considering them as opportunities to improve.

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The centralized management that was practiced by AccorHotels is not applicable anymore.
Though the basic structure is bound to be hierarchical, the organization must also follow a
team based structure. The structure of a team based organization is shown below:
Figure 5
Source: Google
Due to the addition of collaborators and travel agents in the organization, the organization
would have to change some of the practices that they had earlier. The hotels that are self-
owned by the company should be managed by one team and the franchised or managed hotels
should be put under another teams. These teams should further be divided according to
geographical divisions. Due to this, the structure will remain simple, straightforward and
manageable (Mirković et al. n.d.. The CEO and the other top authorities will be there to
supervise. Another team that is needed here is the web team that are responsible for content
creation and social media involvement. This team should be supervised by the top authorities

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and managers as the information generated by this team is most important and will be the
basis on which the company will change their policies and practices.

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References
Alexieva, S., 2016. Sustainable tourism development between innovation competitiveness of
the industry and effective communications in the digital era. Journal of Science and
Research, (9), pp.41-50.
Avery, j., Dev, C.S. and O'Connor, P., 2015. Accor: Strengthening the Brand with Digital
Marketing. Harvard Business School.
Baker, T., 2019. Accor reaches new guests via lifestyle-division growth.
Baker, T., 2019. Change or die, say hotel revenue, sales managers.
Demirçiftçi, T. and Kızılırmak, I., 2016. Strategic branding in hospitality: Case of Accor
Hotels. Journal of Tourismology, 2(1), pp.50-58.
Demirçiftçi, T. and Kızılırmak, I., 2016. Strategic branding in hospitality: Case of Accor
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Grotte, J., 2018. Future Challenges of the Hospitality Industry. 7th, p.11.
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ethnography: Methodological challenges and practical methods. Human Relations, 68(1),
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Airbnb disrupting the hotel industry

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Mirković, V., Lukić, J., Lazarević, S. and Vojinović, Ž., KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE THAT SUPPORTS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.
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