Accor Revamps How It Rewards Luxury Travel Advisors for Hotel Bookings

Skift Take

The Paris-based hotel giant is showering travel advisors with points, perks, and online tools. The goal is to inspire loyalty for bookings of its poshest brands, from Raffles to SLS—all while keeping those pesky online travel agency fees at bay.

Sean O’Neill

Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, revealed its revamped rewards program for luxury travel agents on Monday.

Why it matters

The move aims to bolster Accor’s sales in the luxury and lifestyle hotel segment. Travel agents and advisors are crucial for Accor’s business, helping to boost visibility, reputation, and traveler loyalty through direct bookings that avoid online travel agency commissions.

Focus on luxury and lifestyle hotels

A new portal for travel agents, Hera, will provide agents with tools to book over 270 hotels across a selected set of luxury and lifestyle brands from Accor and its joint venture partner, Ennismore.

“Hera offers a more in-depth content base on our hotels, with a business-to-business approach and a newly-defined hotel page, which allow travel advisor members to get more out of the platform,” said a spokesperson.

Rewards for travel agents

Every room night that an agent books for their clients in the hotels of the following brands will earn the agent one Hera point: Raffles, Fairmont, Banyan Tree, Sofitel, Sofitel Legend, Emblems, Delano, SLS, and SO.

Travel advisors can earn reward points through various booking channels, including negotiated discounted rates. Agents can redeem these Hera points for personal travel or shopping purchases.

The Hera points are separate from loyalty points in Accor’s consumer-facing ALL loyalty program, which travelers earn for their stays.

“Hera aims to inspire loyalty among travel professionals,” said Pascal Visintainer, senior vice president of global sales luxury and lifestyle.

Travel management companies, wholesalers, and tour operators aren’t eligible.

There are also incentives for booking events via Paris Society, the French event business.

Tools for selling hotels

The new Hera portal also aims to boost productivity and client satisfaction by providing resources and tools to create bespoke luxury experiences. The intent is to make it easier for travel agents to market Accor’s properties. Accredited travel advisors can enroll in the site for free.

“There’s no specific training and mentoring section on the website that is linked to the loyalty program,” a spokesperson said. “There are multiple workstreams in parallel and travel advisor training on our brands and hotels remains a priority for the group. We are hopeful to be able to come to market with a revamped offer that is linked to the loyalty program at some point soon, but this won’t happen until 2025 or beyond.”

The big picture

Accor runs more than 5,300 hotels and residences across 110 countries. Last year, it generated about $1.084 billion (€1.003 billion) in EBITDA from revenue of about $5.47 billion (€5.003 billion).

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