In the news: Accor’s new brands – Tribe and The House of Originals, TUI and Ctrip partnership, ADARA cloud suite launch
Hotels: Accor adds new midscale brand and a luxury hotel collection to portfolio
(Image credit: Accor)
Accor has been busy expanding its inventory. Within two days this week it announced the launch of a midscale lifestyle brand, Tribe, and a new luxury hotel collection, The House of Originals, the latter in collaboration with New York-based SBE Entertainment Group (sbe)
The French hospitality group said Tribe “aims to surprise travellers with an original, exciting and carefully curated offer that focuses on style rather than price … reshaping the traditional hotel experience, enabling guests to live, work and play in contemporary interiors.”
The interior design will be sleek with artistic collection “giving the perception of an upscale space” with furnishing from renowned designers including Jean-Paul Gaultier Tom Dixon. Guest
Guestrooms will have under-bed storage, Smart TV with Nespresso coffee capsules and T2 teabags provided free of charge “in place of a pricey minibar.” A Grab & Go station is also available 24/7.
There will also be a Tribe Foods area that is a café by day and bar by night, bicycle rental services, fitness centre, co-working areas as well as city deals available at an “affordable price”.
According to Accor, Tribe has been also been designed to appeal to owners and investor with “a product that guarantees superior financial returns thanks to improved customer perception based on economical spaces and services.”
Tribe currently has one address with 126 rooms in Perth, Australia. The first Tribe hotel in Europe, the 290-room Tribe Glasgow, UK (featured image), will open in the middle of this year.
Ten other openings are scheduled to take place by 2022 in Europe and Asia Pacific, totalling more than 1,700 rooms.
Gaurav Bhushan, chief development officer at Accor, said, “The pipeline of over 50 hotels currently being negotiated for the coming years leads us to believe that the Tribe brand will achieve significant growth all over the world including in gateway locations such as Paris, London, Singapore, Dubai Bangkok and Bangkok. It will be making its debut in 150 international destinations by 2030.”
The House of Originals, the new brand sbe launched in partnership with Accor, is a collection of luxury hotels that are “individually special to the city in which each resides.”
The collaboration for the launch is through Accor’s 50% stake in sbe – a privately-held lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages and operates hotels, residences, restaurants and nightclubs — that it acquired in October last year for US$319 million.
“This new brand will create a community for its guests, predicated on luxury experiences and centred around sbe’s iconic culinary and mixology offerings,” said Accor in a statement announcing its launch.
The inaugural four properties in the luxury brand portfolio are the Sanderson and St Martins Lane in London, Shore Club in Miami Beach and 10 Karaköy in Istanbul – all formerly under sbe’s Morgans Hotel Group.
Another five hotels are in the pipeline in key gateway cities such as Dubai, London and Paris.
Added Accor’s Bhushan: “The House of Originals is the perfect combination of sbe’s know-how in entertainment and F&B, and will benefit from Accor’s global platform, particularly in terms of distribution, loyalty and network development.”
Meanwhile, Accor announced it has chosen Australia as the first Asia Pacific market to expand its partnership with sbe outside of the US.
sbe’s luxury brand Hyde will debut in Queenland’s Gold Coast this month. Hyde Paradiso will be “a fashionable playground” inspired by LA’s famous Sunset Strip. The venue will open all day and evolve into an evening lounge and dining experience.
Sam Nazarian, founder and CEO of sbe, said: “The sbe portfolio will grow to over 50 hotels by 2020, paired with tremendous expansion in the residential, culinary and entertainment venues, including over 150 global venues in the pipeline.”
According to Accor, with the expansion of its brand portfolio it is proceeding with the “enforcement of its lifestyle ecosystem”.
Travel Agents: TUI partners with Ctrip to boost online market share
Travel agency giant TUI has formed a strategic partnership with Ctrip in a deal that will give the 200 million users of the leading Chinese online travel agency direct access to the tours and activities of its subsidiary Musement.
TUI Group bought Musement, the Milan-based technology startup, in September last year with the intention to expand it into a leading digital platform for activities and excursions. The transaction has strengthened its position in the excursions, tours and activities business, the travel company said then.
As part of the partnership between Ctrip and TUI, there are plans to develop exclusive excursions and one-day tours in Chinese, as well as tickets for sights and museums, for many destinations. Musement’s overall portfolio, which is also available to customers from China, currently comprises 150,000 products in over 1,900 cities.
“The strategic partnership with Ctrip shows the immense opportunities the online business offers us in the area of tours and activities. … We are convinced that this strong combination will enable us to consistently expand our online market share in the coming years,” said TUI CEO Fritz Joussen.
He added that the market access to 200 million Ctrip users in China “offers considerable potential for growth in Asia and the activities of our Spanish subsidiary TUI Destination Experiences”.
TUI Destination Experiences is one of the TUI Group’s three strategic growth pillars alongside Hotels & Resorts and Cruises. As part of the TUI 2022 strategy, business in its growth markets of China and South-east Asia will be significantly expanded.
Technology: ADARA launches Destination Marketing Cloud
(Image credit: Jirsak/Getty Images)
Leading travel data co-op and provider of traveller intelligence for travel, ADARA, has unveiled ADARA Destination Marketing Cloud described as “a comprehensive insights, execution and analysis suite of products to transform tourism marketing.”
Created for tourism brands, the suite delivers searching and booking insights giving more accurate messaging, personalisation, targeting and insights, said the company in a release.
The cloud comprised of a number of products to provide tourism marketers with capabilities including:
- Measure marketing effectiveness: Connect digital media campaigns and website activity to visitors, flight bookings, room nights and hotel revenue from 750m+ monthly active travellers
- Gain traveller insights: Unlock insights into the types of travellers that visit a destination and respond to digital marketing efforts
- Validate media and marketing spend: Show a direct connection between consumers who have viewed digital campaigns or been to a destination website, and real visitors to the destination
According to a statement from ADARA tourism brands can see the ROI of website and media campaigns to know the drivers of higher booking rates and visitation. Marketers can also identify which competitive destinations and origin markets are driving revenue most efficiently, and understand how the most valuable visitors search, book, spend and travel.
“Typically, tourism brands have had to guess their total share of a particular market, getting only a partial view of consumer behaviour and bookings. ADARA Destination Marketing Cloud delivers a much more comprehensive picture,” said Layton Han, ADARA CEO.
• Featured image credit (Tribe Glasgow, UK): Accor
