France: Accor Hotels has acquired a 30 per cent stake in short-term rental platform Oasis Collections.
Oasis Collections was launched in Buenos Aires 2009 and counts 1,500 properties in 18 destinations, in Latin America, the US and Europe. The company offers personalised services to leisure and corporate guests alike, including on-the-ground concierge service and access to members’ club venues, as well as targeted exposure to international travellers for home owners.
“Oasis Collections allows us to explore new complementary offer to upscale hotels,” said Vivek Badrinath, Accor deputy chief officer, marketing, digital, distribution and information systems. “We are delighted to work with young talents who share our hospitality and digital culture.”
Parker Stanberry, co-founder and CEO of Oasis Collections, said: “We are pleased and proud to have Accor Hotels alongside us and to benefit from its experience as a global operator and its support in infrastructure and demand generation. We share the same hospitality DNA, and this partnership will give us the means to match our ambition to reach 70 top key cities by 2019.”
www.accorhotels.com
www.oasiscollections.com
Editorial Comment
Yet another hotel brand makes a significant investment into the short term rental marketplace following Hyatt and Wyndham Hotel’s commitment in 2015. This won’t be the last, and the timing and price paid for this deal seems reasonable when compared to the others. Maybe hotel brands remember only too well how they sat on the sidelines when OTA’s started gaining prominence, securing brand and market share. Popular OTA’s now have valuations well above the market capitalisation’s of the hotel groups, and the outlook is for more OTA growth through the vacation rental booking channel.
One of the key regions where global vacation rental adoption is highest is Europe and this suits the Oasis Collections and Accor deal for growth. It seems only a matter of time before Oasis Collections inventory is distributed via Accor’s booking distribution channels, and their recently launched OTA platform amongst others.
Having a presence in 18 cities, gives Oasis Collections a good base to scale with reassuring backers. One Fine Stay’s model is more bespoke, personal and ‘hotel – like’ but harder to scale and unwieldingly labour intensive, being in only four cities currently: New York; Los Angeles, Paris and London. Other than a pilot program that gives their London guests the opportunity of storing their bags and / or using guest rooms at The Churchill (a Hyatt Hotel) to freshen up or tour the city while they wait for their vacation rental to be available for check-in, Hyatt and One Fine Stay have been rather quiet on future plans. Perhaps we will find out more at Serviced Apartment Summit Americas.
Global vacation rental market capitalisation
Research and Markets believes with growing global awareness and the commoditisation of rentals taking place, that the global vacation rental market will reach $169.7 billion by 2019. Competition is intensifying from both direct and indirect channels and with the amount of vacation rental websites emerging, the market is in danger of damaging its reputation.
Hotel vacation rental strategy
Choice Hotels recently announced it is to launch its own vacation rental platform, and the strategy of how hotel companies enter the market is an interesting question, with Marriott International; Wyndham, Starwood and Hilton already well placed in the timeshare and fractional ownership marketplace.
The more vacation rentals can ‘hotelizize’ the quality of guest experience is something the hotel companies can help with, hence one of the reasons for the recent stakebuilding activity – we doubt whether Oasis Collections and One Fine Stay are profitable at the moment.
“Hotels are a sell, even without the threat of Airbnb” – Major investor, December 2015
Ironically, prior to the Oasis Collections announcement, Accor was the only share ‘buy’ recommended by Jefferies International, stating that they had lowered hotel share price targets, except for Accor. Most hotel companies appear fairly complacent publicly about the threat, except Accor who recently stated they are “seeing some pressure from Airbnb in Paris on weekend leisure travel.”</p
