Skift Take
Accor's chief digital officer, Alix Boulnois, has been boosting the hotel giant's tech game. Her detailed data covers how any hotel company could use tech to drive loyalty, sell subscriptions, and distribute rooms.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.
Accor held a day of presentations for investors on June 27, and I wrote a piece covering 7 top slides from it. Today I want to highlight the most notable 20 minutes of the six hours of talks.
Alix Boulnois, chief digital officer, revealed how Accor is strengthening its digital foundations.
Earlier this year, Boulnois joined Accor’s management board. The move underscored her importance at the Paris-based group, which runs 5,400 hotels and whose brands include Raffles, Fairmont, Ibis, and Novotel. Before joining Accor a few years ago, Boulnois spent seven years at Amazon, where one of her projects was to launch Prime Now grocery delivery. "I spent most of my career with big tech guys in the U.S., and they have a unique way to work and manage their teams — to deliver solutions and systems," Boulnois said. "This is really what my leadership team has been trained to enforce within this organization." She was previously a consultant at McKinsey. (Aren't they all?)Accor launched what it calls a "digital factory" at the end of 2021. What the heck is that?
The unit brings together about 800 developers, data analysts, product managers, customer relationship experts, and others to tackle the problems of hotel guests and operators. "Accor has the only digital factory at scale in the hospitality industry," Boulnois said. Boulnois has led this team to have a Silicon Valley attitude toward innovation. For instance, guests had a problem easily earning and burning points in the hotel group's loyalty program. So the digital factory created an ALL-Accor Live Limitless payment card, thanks to an integration with tech company Fever. The card lets guests amass points on all purchases at Accor-affiliated properties, such as a meal at a restaurant, a spa visit, a co-working visit, or an overnight hotel stay. Guests can use the card to pay for services