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Accor CEO Claims Biggest Pandemic Hotel Investment Bargains Are Still to Come

Cameron Sperance
Accor CEO Sebastian Bazin

Photo Credit: Companies like IHG, Hyatt, and Accor still expect pandemic-related growth opportunities to emerge in coming months. Pictured is Accor CEO Sebastian Bazin at Skift Forum Europe.  Skift

Skift Take

Big, global hotel companies weren’t exactly pandemic success stories. However, they still want to market the notion there is more value in a global network than going it alone as an independent operator. Getting left out of the expected summer travel boom is what it will take for smaller operators to accept that logic.

An economic crisis is a terrible thing to waste, investors cavalierly say when it comes to snapping up bargains amid financial turmoil like the Great Recession of 2008. That ideology was expected to ring true during the pandemic, but there hasn’t been the crashing wave of distress and bargain pricing many hotel investors eagerly anticipated. Investment funds targeting hotels announce deals almost on a weekly basis, and major investment firms like Blackstone and Starwood Capital have circled the hospitality sector for deals. Keep waiting, some of the CEOs of the world’s largest hotel companies argue. Opportunities are still likely in the months ahead. “At the end of the day, we know a lot of the small guys … are probably suffering,” Accor CEO Sebastien Bazin said this week on a chief executive virtual roundtable at the NYU International Hospitality Investment Conference. “They a

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