JEAN-MICHEL CASSÉ

The road ahead

In terms of mergers and acquisitions, if there were any opportunity that made sense, we would look at it, but is that what we are running after now, no, because what we really want is our development to clearly be assetlight. We are looking at mergers and acquisitions from a central or global point of view. This is why, thanks to the acquisition of Fairmont, Raffles and Swissotel, we’ve been getting additional hotels here. Thanks to the acquisition of Mövenpick, we’ve been getting additional inventory. So, globally, few other things like that may come and then they would be integrated and be supported by our entire network, as is being done now.

I have to say that the acquisition of Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissotel gave us an amazing visibility in the luxury space because now, ACCORHOTELS globally, is the second luxury player on earth after Marriott. When we look at the development pipeline, we have a slightly bigger pipeline than they do. So, we are doing well in that space and these hotels enable us to look forward to new developments or luxury hotels in India as well.

No flipside exists

I don’t think there is a flipside because if there is such a merger or acquisition, it means there is an interest for both parties, and there would be interest for both parties in light of what the customer’s choice would be. Either you keep whatever you merge or whatever you acquire.