“Plan, Book, Enjoy”: Introducing HERA, Accor’s New Travel Advisors’ Luxury Loyalty & Rewards with Pascal Visintainer

Accor is taking part in the Arabian Travel Market (ATM), a leading international travel and tourism event attracting a global community of travel professionals and is taking this opportunity to introduce HERA, Accor Travel Advisor Program. Pascal Visintainer, Accor’s Senior Vice President Global Sales, Luxury & Lifestyle, sat down with us to discuss about this program bringing together Accor’s Sales and Luxury expertise. Providing access to 270+ Accor and Ennismore hotels and resorts across 11 remarkable luxury and lifestyle brands including Orient Express, Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel, SLS, Delano, HERA is a new worldwide B2B loyalty and rewards program exclusively for travel advisors.

Our aim with HERA is to inspire loyalty among leading travel professionals, by equipping them with all the resources they need to seamlessly create bespoke luxury travel experiences for their clients and granting them valuable Reward Points to use freely on their own time. With easy-to-use tools for travel planning, an efficient booking system, and plentiful rewards, we are confident that HERA will be the top choice of travel advisors around the globe. Pascal Visintainer, SVP Global Sales, Luxury & Lifestyle Division, Accor

PV: The new platform HERA.Accor.com includes more brands, capabilities, and features, from in-depth hotel descriptions to customized booking confirmations, and much more. It is a unique and personalized online workspace for travel advisors, where they can easily book at participating Accor and Ennismore hotels and resorts, maintain and view a complete booking history of all the reservations made.

Travel professionals who serve a luxury travelers clientele require more tools, resources, and opportunities to easily customize a client’s itinerary. HERA is much more than a loyalty program: it is a loyalty ecosystem that gives travel advisors who specialize in luxury and lifestyle a tailor-made, highly personalized, seamless experience, and that helps boost their productivity and client satisfaction, while generously rewarding them for their bookings.

Why is HERA focused on our Luxury & Lifestyle Division?

PV: Travel advisors who specialize in luxury and lifestyle cater to clients with very specific needs and high expectations. High-end travel booking tools are tailored to meet these clients’ specific requests.

To help deliver the promise of a customized and flexible rewards and loyalty ecosystem, we have launched HERA with a focus on our Luxury & Lifestyle brands. HERA becomes a one-stop-shop for our B2B clients where they can find what they need to give their clients the best service and travel experience possible.

And this is why we designed HERA: to support advisors in seamlessly creating unique and highly personalized luxury travel experiences.

Could you say a little bit more about what it means for Accor to be partner-centric?

PV: Our sales ecosystem is a key growth driver for the Group, with our Luxury & Lifestyle sales team enhancing value for all stakeholders. HERA has been co-constructed with some of our partners travel agencies and their feedback, ideas and enthusiasm. We are partner-centric, and definitely client-centric. The excellence of our people combined with our powerful tools, holistic approach, innovative services and hotel network are what make us stand out. Commitment, trust, generosity are the key drivers behind HERA. We provide comprehensive expertise and services and build solid long-lasting relationships with our business partners to drive revenue, performance, and growth – all of which contribute to making the Group a preferred partner for hotel owners around the world, as well as allowing us to meet and anticipate our B2B client needs in a personalized way.

And having a partner-centric mindset also works internally: we have implemented new ways of working internally as well, by collaborating closely with a wide range of expertise (including the brands, digital teams, etc…), which enabled us to turn this program into a success by leveraging these complementary skills.

Is there anything else you might like to add?

PV: Yes, I would like to say a few words about why we are calling this new program HERA. HERA is the name of the Greek goddess for marriage and family. She protects commitment and ensures fidelity, which keeps the ties that sustain us strong. This is also HERA’s mission: to cultivate enduring loyalty from our valued travel advisors and agency partners. Of course, trust and loyalty are earned – we cannot take them for granted. But we believe that HERA loyalty ecosystem is proof that we are committed to reinforcing that trust, and inspire our valued B2B customers to take full advantage of the program’s efficiency and abundant rewards.

About Accor, a world-leading hospitality group

Accor is a world leading hospitality group offering experiences across more than 110 countries in 5,500 properties, 10,000 food & beverage venues, wellness facilities or flexible workspaces. The Group has one of the industry’s most diverse hospitality ecosystems, encompassing more than 45 hotel brands from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore. Accor is committed to taking positive action in terms of business ethics & integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community outreach, and diversity & inclusion. Founded in 1967, Accor SA is headquartered in France and publicly listed on Euronext Paris (ISIN code: FR0000120404) and on the OTC Market (Ticker: ACCYY) in the United States. For more information, please visit www.group.accor.com or follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.