A total of 50 properties from 27 countries presented their products at the AccorHotels Showcase 2017 that was held in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai.
AccorHotels saw its various properties from around the world come under one roof to meet the travel trade partners in India. Arif Patel, Vice President – Sales, Marketing, Distribution & Loyalty, AccorHotels India, said, “This is one of the largest showcases done by any brand in the country. We are very excited and the response is overwhelming. In Mumbai, we had more than 800 customers, and in Delhi we had around 700 people. I spoke to participants and all of them had some active leads to close.”
The group, according to Patel, is looking at offering a panoply of its brands to customers in India. “We have a larger distribution strategy in place. Firstly, we are opening global sales offices in nine cities with 42 sales people,” he said. The Showcase is only one of the many events that AccorHotels is planning in India. The brand is set to showcase products from selected destinations as well. “We are the largest players in Singapore with 14,000 rooms, and we are going to invite all our hotels from Singapore to come to India to meet customers who have business for Singapore. However, the Showcase will remain the face of our B2B events, and we might take it to Bengaluru next year or the year after that,” added Patel.
The acquisition of FRHI Hotels by AccorHotels has also given them additional opportunities for development, informed Patel. “In India, we have 46 operating hotels. We are going to open nine more hotels by the end of this year, which will make it 55. We will cross the 10,000 mark in rooms. These three brands give us more opportunities to work with potential developers. Our strategy now will be to grow our luxury portfolio, while not losing sight of upscale and midscale brands. We are going to be in 26 cities by the end of this year. The new cities are Lucknow, Vadodara, Guwahati, Nagpur, Coimbatore and we just opened a hotel in Cochin,” he added.
In fact, Patel said that they were looking at further intensifying their presence in cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, and Goa, where they already have hotels. The group is also set to open another ibis hotel in Pune.
