• HOTELS
R ecent disruption affecting travel conditions changed. For Raki Phillips, overseeing more than 260 Accor hotels across 27 countries, the response has centred on three priorities: protecting people and guests, supporting owners and keeping operations flexible enough to respond as demand returns. “What matters is how you respond, how quickly you adapt and how you position the business to move forward,” he says. across the Middle East has required hotels to adapt quickly as trading Across such a diverse region, the impact has varied considerably from market to market, making local decision-making critical. Accor flexed teams across operations, moved resources to where they were most needed and gave general managers and local leadership greater room to respond to conditions on the ground. “Our scale gave us resilience, but our operating model gave us agility,” explains Phillips “We empowered the teams closest to each market to make decisions quickly and adapt hotels to the demand they were seeing.” Hotels also looked differently at how assets were being used, including re-imagining underutilised spaces and identifying new operational opportunities, while protecting service quality and avoiding short-term measures that could weaken performance later. At the centre of that response are Accor’s people. The group has more than 22,000 Heartists® across the region, a workforce Phillips views as a long-term asset rather than a variable cost. “Hospitality is a people business; people are not simply part of our operating model; they are what makes it work.” Accor used its regional and international scale to retain skills wherever possible, redeploying colleagues, sharing expertise between hotels and creating more than 900 opportunities across its wider network, including in high-growth markets such as Asia and India. The experience has reinforced the importance of building talent depth before difficult periods arrive. Accor maintains a succession pipeline across its general manager population, with short- and long- term successors identified through its talent matrix, strengthening both retention and operational flexibility. “You cannot start building resilience when disruption happens. You build it over
time through strong leaders, capable teams and a culture that gives people room to grow.” Owner relationships have been the other critical priority. As an asset-light operator, Accor relies on close alignment with hotel owners, supported by local leadership teams in markets including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, South Africa and Türkiye. During the more challenging trading period, hotels were assessed individually rather than subjected to blanket measures. Operations were flexed around demand, with discipline around costs and productivity, while areas directly affecting guest experience and the long-term value of each asset were protected. “This is where the strength of an owner- operator relationship is really tested,” Phillips acknowledges. “Our responsibility is not simply to manage through a difficult quarter; it is to protect the long-term performance and value of the asset.” That same discipline is now informing recovery planning: “You cannot wait for recovery to show in the numbers before preparing for it. By then, you are already behind,” Phillips adds. Hotels are planning market by market, assessing forward demand, workforce requirements and operational capacity across different scenarios so they can scale effectively as conditions improve. The challenge becomes even more important as Accor expands. With more than 100 hotels in the regional pipeline, maintaining standards will depend on leadership capability growing alongside the portfolio. In 2025, more than 250 general managers across 27 countries participated in the group’s Think Like a Trader programme, strengthening commercial and revenue-management skills across managed and franchised hotels. Female leadership initiative SheLeads has also grown to around 12,000 members across the GCC and Levant and expanded into Africa, Türkiye, Jordan and Egypt. The next test is ensuring Accor’s operational capability keeps pace with its expanding portfolio. “Growth is only sustainable if the operating platform, leadership and culture grow with it,” says Phillips. The strength of the model lies in combining global scale and expertise with leaders who understand their markets, owners and guests.
Stronger on the ground
Mövenpick Dead Sea, Jordan; a strong performer for intra-regional travel
Raki Phillips , Regional Vice President, Premium, Midscale & Economy, Middle East, Africa & Türkiye, Accor, explains
how empowered teams, talent mobility and close owner partnerships are driving operational resilience and recovery
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