AccorHotels Has a Community Hub Strategy With Local Services App
Photo Credit: The AccorLocal mobile app lets people order services provided by local hotels and local merchants. Skift
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This is a sign of a much bigger shift in the entire travel industry where travel brands no longer want to just be "travel" brands. Hotels don't want to just be hotels. Instead, they want to be platforms for offering you experiences whenever and wherever you may be.
A hotel isn't just a hotel anymore. It's no longer just a place for travelers to lay their heads at night. At least, that's how AccorHotels is thinking about its hotels.
The Paris-based company ended its AccorLocal pilot and officially launched a mobile app — something it hopes anyone can use in their daily lives.
That pilot, which CEO Sebastien Bazin publicized in February, has evolved into a mobile app that allows users to access services both from local merchants and AccorHotels properties.
To date, the AccorLocal app has more than 3,000 active users and features 250 participating hotels in 42 cities throughout France. AccorHotels plans to take it to the rest of Europe and eventually, the rest of the world, in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Those plans would become reality if the app gains traction. Not all of Accorhotels' grand plans, such as its hope to become a booking platform for independent hotels, work out.
The official launch of this app might not seem very
