There’s a new boss in town to ensure that Sofitel, the almost 60-year-old hotel chain synonymous with French luxury and hospitality, doesn’t get lost in an era that seems like a new hotel brand. published every day.
Maud Bailly – CEO of French hotel group Accor’s Sofitel, MGallery Collection and Emblems Collection since January – is no stranger to the tourism sector.
Until reorganizing the company to put her in charge of three brands, Bailly was CEO of Accor in Southern Europe for more than two years and oversaw the company’s digital operations for nearly four years prior to that. She also worked for 4 years at the French railway company SNCF.
Sofitel, MGallery and Emblems’ Bailly Era got off to a strong start with the recent opening Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo, Panama City. Other recent high-end sales include properties in dubai And Barcelonaand a major renovation underway at the brand’s Auckland, New Zealandlocation.
Sofitel Legend is a specialized brand in Sofitel’s orbit, focused on transforming heritage properties into luxury hotels. Emblems Collection is Accor’s new soft luxury brand (to compete with brands like Hilton’s LXR and Marriott’s The Luxury Collection), while MGallery is a luxury hotel collection that competes in the same bracket as Marriott’s Autograph. Collection and Hilton’s Curio.
Bailly’s current oversight includes 241 hotels across three brands. Sofitel turns 60 next May, and it’s clear that Bailly is busy making sure the brand looks its best before its big birthday.
“It’s great, but sometimes after 60 years, you need a lift,” Bailly told TPG with a laugh during the opening week of Sofitel Legend in Panama late last month. “And even with natural beauty, sometimes you need a complete makeover.”
Perfecting a legacy luxury brand
Paris-based Accor is Europe’s largest hotel company and has a significant presence around the world. American travelers are probably most familiar with Accor’s Fairmont, Sofitel, and Raffles luxury brands as well as its lifestyle hotel brands such as 21C Museum Hotels, The Hoxton, Delano and Mondrian (these brands are all the same). a subsidiary of the Ennismore brand in which Accor has a majority stake).
Sofitel, acquired by Accor in 1980, has long been one of the French hotel group’s most luxurious brands. It is also arguably the brand most associated with Accor’s hometown: The brand opened its first hotel in Strasbourg in 1964 but expanded globally in the 1970s, including its first hotel in America in Minneapolis.
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The brand is known for delivering French luxury in its hotels around the world, meaning you’ll hear “Bonjour” from the staff and see French food and drink in the mix. menu whether you are staying at a flagship Sofitel hotel in Paris or Panama .
The Minnesota Sofitel opened in 1975 with French elements like a bakery that makes croissants and baguettes, a bidet in a third of the bathroom, 10 French chefs and a wine cellar. The hotel comes amid an American craze for all things French thanks to Julia Child’s continued popularity, making French cooking more accessible thanks to cookbooks and TV shows hers.
Sofitel has expanded globally over the years, and some in the hospitality industry argue that it costs the guest experience dearly.
The brand has become a standout product for many types of hotels, thought has gone. Given that Sofitel is Accor’s most global luxury brand, one cannot help but feel a similarity to Sheraton — the most global of Marriott’s brands, which has also faced criticism. for decades about the lack of cohesive guest experiences across its multiple property types.
However, Sofitel’s brand overhaul seems to be much further away than Sheraton Hotel. Accor’s first face-lift Sofitel appeared in the early 2000s. This meant cutting ties with about half of the brand’s hotels at the time. Sofitel had 121 hotels around the world at the end of last year, including hotels in Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington, DC
It seems the brand’s flair continues under Bailly’s tutelage.
Executive teams are working to assess the quality level of each property and work with owners to unleash the brand’s full potential. This means that Bailly herself is spending a lot of time on the road inspecting the property. Our Panama City meetup came as Bailly spent the previous weeks visiting hotels in Bangkok, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Dubai, Los Angeles, New York City and Colombia.
Working with owners to renovate an existing hotel is always the best outcome, but Bailly said some hotels will eventually leave the Sofitel system.
“People love brands. It’s working really well, and sometimes there’s a tough temptation to keep the product as it is because it’s still working well, when the product isn’t so good anymore,” she says. “My role is to promote [owners] and clear requirements for innovating, cleaning up the network, opening flagships, and making sure we raise brand standards and protect them.”
Sofitel in the Americas
There are only six Sofitel Legend hotels in the world, but the opening in Panama offers some clues as to what Bailly has in store for the broader Sofitel brand and how she can grow the MGallery collection. and Emblems.
Bottom line: You’re better off being selective and playing hard when mapping out future hotel locations.
“For me, I say ‘no’ better than we say ‘yes’,” Bailly said. “We need consistency. Consistency is part of luxury. After all, I’m human. protect the consistency and quality of the brand so that no matter where you travel, you will say: ‘Ah, this is Sofitel Legend’ or ‘This is Sofitel Legend’ this is MGallery. This is Emblem, ‘ or, ‘This is Sofitel.’”
The US remains a growth opportunity for Sofitel. The brand is still one of Accor’s most popular products in the US, but it doesn’t have as many locations as its competitors. Bailly suggests the upgrade is coming to US locations.
“I am currently meeting with each owner individually to see how we can help them improve their products and increase brand awareness in the US,” says Bailly.
She added that there are a number of potential hotels operating in “major US destinations,” noting that soft-brand MGallery is also finding an audience here with locations in Miami and Seattle recently.
The overall brand typically has 150 rooms, and the guest experience leans more towards the design and surrounding community — a similar vibe to the lifestyle brands Accor is having luck with expanding in the US. , such as The Hoxton and 21C Museum Hotels.
“You can imagine many MGallery hotels across the United States,” Bailly said.
It’s easy to have such a line as any hotel executive would say. However, there are signs that Accor is having more luck in the US Project Raffles scheduled to open in Boston This summer was a confusing game at first, given that the franchise isn’t as popular as its competitors, like St. Regis or Waldorf Astoria.
The Boston development team later noted that they preferred working with Accor because of the greater autonomy offered in building their ultra-luxury property.
Going back to a 1977 article about the Sofitel hotel in Minneapolis, more than four decades ago there was a similar commentary on why that hotel owner partnered with the French brand instead of its competitors. America like Hyatt and Hilton.
Reverse history. That creates a big wind for Accor to grow in the Americas.
