Accor chairman streamlines management team at hotel giant

The new chairman and chief executive of French hotel giant Accor has "streamlined" his management team to speed up the decision making process.

Gilles Pélisson, whose controversial appointment as both chairman and chief executive in February provoked several board members to quit, has reduced the company's operating regions from five to three.

These are Europe the Middle East and Africa; the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

Jacques Stern has been appointed as senior executive vice president as a result, with several other changes amongst the senior management.

Yann Caillère will lead Europe, which now includes Northern and Southern Europe, with 56 countries and 2,300 hotels. He will continue to oversee the Middle East and Africa, and remains in charge of Sofitel Worldwide.

Michael Flaxman will head a new region called the Americas, combining the 1,000 Motel6/Studio 6 sites and the Novotel properties in the United States and Canada, as well as the hotels in Latin America.

Michael Issenberg will continue to manage operations in the Asia-Pacific region, which has 370 hotels in 16 countries.

Hotel marketing and sales and distribution have also been combined into a single corporate department, which will be headed up by Jean-Luc Chrétien.

Accor operates in nearly 100 countries and at 4,000 hotels and its brands include Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Mercure, Suitehotel, Ibis, All Seasons, Etap, Formule1.

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By Gemma Sharkey

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