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1. MKT42290 - Digital Marketing Strategy & Campaign Planning 8
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December 2016
Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 1
Name: Gabriella De Domenico
Student Number: 16204455
Master: Msc Digital Marketing (Full Time)
Module: Digital Marketing Strategy & Campaign Planning (MKT42290)
Accor Hotels and the DigitalTransformation
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
Critically evaluate what the problems were for Accor Hotels, the importance of
digital transformation & content, and how Olivier Arnoux developed his strategic
plan of attack for enriching customer experiences through the power of digital
marketing?
Outline:
1) Introduction
2) Accor Hotel profile
- Competitive Landscape
3) Digital Disruption variables
- New Actors
- New Content
- New Customer Journey
4) Main Problems assessment
- The shift of power and the content challenge
- SWOT Analysis
5) Strategic Plan Recommendations
6) Conclusions

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Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 2
1) Introduction
The French hotel chain Accor has a global presence and a long history, with almost four
thousands hotels in the entire world and almost 50 years of experience. Accor has
experienced diverse market changes throughout the last decades, shaping differently its
Brand and targeting new market segments, and finally changing its leadership quite
frequently since 2005. One of the biggest challenge currently facing concerns the digital
transformation which has totally disrupted the hotel environment and changed the actors
playing in the market and the behavior of the users. As a result, the customer journey is
today totally transformed and involves numerous online platforms and new source of
contents, which have made the customer more informed and powerful. Consequently,
Accor needs to plan an innovative online and offline marketing strategy in order to add
value to the customer experience and to emerge from the competitors. In the following
analysis Accor Hotel strengths and weaknesses will be explored, and recommendations
for the future marketing strategy will be assessed, taking into account the challenges
offered by the digital era and the new external variables of the online customer journey.
2) Accor Hotel profile
Accors is an hotel chain founded in Lille, France, in 1967, which experienced a great
expansion of the market share throughout five decades, being currently present with
510,000 rooms in 92 countries in the world.
Accor addresses three market segments: the Luxury market (16%) with Sofitel, The Sebel,
Pullman, Mgallery and Grand Mercure brands; the midscale one (45%) with Novotel,
adagio, Mamashlter and Mercure brand; and the economy/basic segment (39%), with Ibis

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Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 3
and HotelF1 brands. It is worth of notice that the above mention structure differs from the
market segmentation trends assessed in the hospitality sector (see following Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1
After a long period of management changes, the CEO Sebastien Bazin introduced a more
efficient “Asset light plan” for the company, establishing from 2013 the following business
structure: 40% Manage hotels - 40% Franchised hotels - 20% Owned hotels.
Competitive Landscape
From the Accor’s competitor analysis emerged that competitors are the following
worldwide, structured and global hotel companies: Starwood Hotels and Resort worldwide
Inc., Marriott International Inc., Hilton Worldwide, InterContinental Hotel Group Plc and
Wyndham Worldwide Corp. All the five brands performed strong business figures and
long experience in the luxury, middle scale and budget market segments. An important
variable is represented by the partnership network developed by each competitor with
strategic company in the Tourism sector, as Airlines, Cruises lines, high profile Restaurant
and travel Agencies.

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Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 4
3) Digital Disruption Variables
Nowadays the tourism and hospitality sector has been deeply shaped by the latest
technological wave which have transformed the competitive landscape, the amount and
the type of actors involved in the purchasing process as well as the consumer behavior.
The phenomenon is not new, similar transformations have been experienced by other
industries, and hotel one is currently facing an adaptation phase. The common disrupting
factors are the introduction in the market of the sharing platforms, the mobile payment and
the broad and fast connectivity opportunities, both for sellers and consumers.
The main digital variables are going to be analyzed as follows: new actors in the market
and new type of content production has influenced the customer journey in each phase.
- OTA
- Review sites
-Social Media
- Aggregate MetaSearch
- Alternative Lodging Option
source
Hotel
New Actors
source
User
New Content
Persuasive
Content
(convert)
Educational
Content
(entertain)
Intent of improve
the service/
revenge
Intent of Help other
consumers
(altruistic action)
Sense of
belonging to a
community
COSTUMER JOURNEY
Inspiration Comparison Booking Travel & stay Review
REACH ACT CONVERT ENGAGE

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New Actors
The market is nowadays composed by new digital players which have affected negatively
the former dominating role of the brick and mortar travel agencies. Social networsk as
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, now play a huge role in inspiring with visual content,
engaging and informing consumers with reviews a useful guide content. Online Travel
Agency (OTA) gave the opportunity to compare benefits and experiences of each hotels
and book the best option; Metasearch sites have the aim of compare prices in the most
transparent way, Review sites give the chance to read peer-to-peer comments and have
some internal insights, Travel blogs and forum inspires the consumer about the whole
journey and sharing platform as Airbnb does not represent a minor competitor, since it has
overcome Marriott, Starwood and Hilton hotel chains in terms of capitalization of the
market. As a consequence, Accor should apply a omnichannel approach in order to
satisfying accurately each consumer need, in each phase of the purchase-cycle, through
the right channel.
New Content
The rapid production and accumulation of content online is the second main digital
variable which has a great impact on the customer journey. The online content production
can be divided by two groups, depending of the source: the content produced by the Hotel
and the content independently generated by the Users.
The owned content has the aim of educate the audience about the hotel characteristics
and benefit, with descriptions, photos, videos, available extra-services, engaging the target
with added value information and emotional inspirations. On the other hand, the content
could be also persuasive, orientated towards the conversion (i.e. transparent price list,
promotional content, targeted deals).

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The content produced by the consumers has a crucial role because it involves the trust
among users, which has always impacted largely the social dynamics andnespecially the
consumer behavior. Authentic photographs and honest reviews are the main ingredient of
the e-reputation of hotels. This phenomenon is driven by altruistic purposes, since users
do not have a direct benefit from it, they post reviews in order to help other consumers
feeling part of the community, on the one hand, and to share good and bad experiences in
order to help the hotel to improve services or report a failure experience, on the other
hand.
New Customer Journey
The above mentioned two variables affect the costumer journey in each phase. The
consumer could be indirectly and direclty influenced by visual and descriptive content
(photos, story-telling video and texts, “how to” guide, etc.) when the holiday destination
has to be decided and the hotel still have to be booked. Travel Blog and Forums, as well
as Social channels plays a great role during this inspiration phase. When the active
research begins, the user will take advantage from OTAs and Metasearch site in order to
read review, compare price and book the best offer. During this phase the user is driven by
different need, not only price related, since the main concerns regard also the risk of
choosing a poor quality option. Also social media play a role because can generate brand
awareness and sense of loyalty towards a brand which is recognized by the community
influencers. It is worth of notice that the booking through a third party sites has high
commission costs for the hotel, which have the interest of keeping the consumer on the
website after the first purchase through loyalty program. Finally during and after the
staying period the hotel should encourage the consumer to give feedbacks and share
positive reviews, engaging the user and apply remarketing tactics.

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4) Main Problems assessment
Taking into account the above mentioned variables, Accor is facing numerous challenges
because of the current digital disruption, and the main problem can be grouped as
follows:
1. The shift of power
Institutional trust has been substituted by peer trust: the consumer has gained power
(see exhibit 2) and the company has to focus on a customer-centric approach
transformation. The users have more information and can influence other users sharing
experiences and comments, influencing negatively or positively the company reputation
online.
Exhibit 2
2. The content challenge
The great accumulation of content online comes from different sources, is posted on
numerous channels, and is produced with different aims. Accor has to plan a digital
marketing strategy able to tackle each of the following aspect:
- Monitoring the bran reputation and receive the feedbacks
- Producing content for each channel for each aim
- Encouraging users to share positive experience

8. MKT42290 - Digital Marketing Strategy & Campaign Planning 8
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Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 8
SWOT Analysis
SWOT
STRENGHTS
- Global Presence
- Target each Market Segment
- Asset-light management
- Good level of feedbacks
OPPORTUNITIES
- Leveraging the interaction and feedbacks with guests
in order to improve the service
- Encouraging satisfied and loyal customer to share the
experience becoming influencers
WEAKNESSES
- Other players in the market have stronger partnership
- Old Style feedback collection
- Accor team is not incorporating digital variable into in
the everyday duties
- Online Information about the Brand are not completely
under Accor control
THREATS
- The market is highly competitive with strong push to
innovate
- New competitor with light asset costs, as Airbnb
-Customer gaining more power
5) Strategic Plan Recommendations
In order to complete the transformation towards a customer centric business, and tackle
the first identified problem (the shift of power), firstly, Accor should use social channels
and review site as a source of honest feedback in order to improve its product and service.
Secondly, Accor should improve and leverage the loyalty programs, addressing each
satisfied customer with personalized and targeted deals in order to encourage to use the
owned booking platform on the website (saving commissions costs to OTAs), and to share
the positive experience with other users.
The content challenge should be tackled on each phase (Monitor, Produce, Encourage)
addressing the consumer need with the right content and channel.
Firstly, Social Media Listening activities should be put in place in order to monitor the e-
reputation. Secondly, the Accor staff should be trained in order to integrate digital
capabilities and consume behavior understanding within the everyday duties. Thirdly,

9. MKT42290 - Digital Marketing Strategy & Campaign Planning 8
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Gabriella De Domenico – 16204455 – Third Individual Assignment 9
each phase of the customer journey should be addressed with specific actions, targeting
each stage with the content and the platform above mentioned.
6) Conclusions
Accor is an established worldwide 50-years-experience hotel chain currently facing
numerous digital challenges, represented by new actor in the market, as OTAs, Review
site, Travel blogs and Social network and the rise of mobile connectivity, which have
influenced the costumer journey in the hotel and tourism sector and shaped and
empowered the customer. The competition has risen, with new actor as Airbnb, and the
costs have grown due to the commission for third party websites. Accor’s needs are to
assess an innovative online marketing strategy with the aim of enriching the customer
experience and emerging from the competitors. After the analysis of the emerging digital
threats and Accor Hotel strengths and weaknesses, two main problems have been
identified: the shift of power and the content issue.
For these reasons, Accor’s digital marketing strategy should be focused on two main
aspects: on the one hand, Accor should adopt a customer-centric approach, integrating
feedbacks and review and follow its e-reputation in order to improve the services. On the
other hand Accor should put in place marketing tactics in order to Monitor (i.e. SML tools),
Produce and Encourage content creation, in order to preserve the brand awareness.
Reference:
Dubois D., InYoung C., Niessing J., Wee J., (2016) AccorHotels and the Digital Transformation: Enriching
Experiences through Content Strategies along the Customer Journey, INSEAD