Skift Take
Accor recently rebranded its loyalty program under the phrase "Live Limitless." The company needs to replace its limited technology structure to meet that ambition, and this deal represents a huge commercial win for Sabre.
Accor said it's agreed to embark on a pilot project with Sabre to build software to run its properties, marking the first global hotel enterprise client for the technology giant based in Texas that does much of its business with airlines. Sabre's largest enterprise client to date has been Wyndham.
Paris-based Accor, whose brands include Sofitel and Raffles, wants to switch from its internal system, called TARS [The Accor Reservation System], to Sabre Hospitality's Synxis brand of tools, including a central reservation system and a property management system in a cloud-native platform.
"The deal looks similar to the Amadeus IHG deal in both the content but also with the hotel company being a pilot partner with the hope the software, once proven, can be rolled out to other hotel companies," wrote Richard Clarke, an analyst at Bernstein, in a note to investors.
The pilot suggests that Accor has an ambition for faster growth.
"IHG have achieved faster unit