AccorHotels to launch new Greet brand
 

https://www.thecaterer.com/articles/...ew-greet-brand

Is this not just another attempt to include independent hotels?

Oh great, another brand. Just what Accor needs.

The article says:

"Greet would be AccorHotels’ 34th brand."


I approve.
33 brands was definitely not enough.

OK, so Accor thinks there are hotels awful enough to not even meet Mercure or Ibis Styles "standards" that they need in their fold. Plus they do absolutely need more brands. I am still so excited about the two Jo & Joe properties and about the value Orient Express adds to the portfolio.

More seriously, perhaps they could at least purge the Mercure portfolio and downgrade the most awful ones to "Greet".

GREET creeps into the market
 

For several years now, the race is on to trademark any remotely related word as a hospitality brand. While Marriott somehow believes in MOXY, pre-merger Starwood went for the obvious pun with ALOFT and Radisson uses the German market to try out every "-otel" name Accor did not come up first with, most recently with PRIZEOTEL. Hilton trademarked the first two things they could come up with, so now they have TRU and CANOPY, Interconti started with every 4-letter word with a "v" (EVEN, AVID and VOCO) and Hyatt's trademark lawyers fell asleep on the keyboard and ended up with ANDAZ.

Accor, meanwhile, seems to have a good hand at selecting names and went for, hitherto free, GREET. From the press releases one can deduce this is a brand they intend to use for "soft conversions" of properties so bad they cannot even join Mercure or Ibis Styles. Quite quietly, Accor just opened a "flagship" property by converting the former COMFORT Hotel in the small French town of Beaune.

The hotel does seem to be the kind of a property Accor would not want any of their other brands to touch by a ten-feet pole (as indicated by its former branding), and a sigfnificant refurbishment was undertaken for the relaunch, with surprisingly good results (at least in publicity photos). Interestingly, there are representatives from almost all "traditional" Accor brands in Beaune, and the new GREET significantly undercuts them on price (you can already book the GREET Beaune and check their rates on accorhotels.com).

BEFORE // AFTER
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9a64422006.jpghttps://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d0205446e6.jpg


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9661f877b7.jpghttps://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...89b3d94de6.jpg

It remains to be seen if Accor will expect the same level of investment from future franchisees, as this is pretty much as extensive, if not more so, as usually done at Ibis Styles or Mercures. Actually, I would much prefer for many of the existing hotels from more "upmarket" brands to undergo similar refurbishments (I am looking at you, Mercure Bologna Centro...) No development fact sheet is yet available for the GREET brand, so it is hard to say what the exact requirements are, but the marketing blurb cropping up in Accor pages speaks of " upcycled furniture sourced from flea market" (which would still be an improvement over the furniture found in some hotels).

The good news is that the brand is a part of LCAH from the very start, the bad news is that we will earn points according to the lowest possible coefficient, as low as at Adagio Access ().

My hope is that with this possibly more flexible and financially viable offering, Accor will be able to reach out to independent hotels, as well as affiliates of the bottom-scrapers such as BW, Choice and Wyndham, to improve coverage in poorly-served areas, especially outside of the largest metropoles.

Honestly that Comfort hotel renovation might as well have just been rebranded to Ibis Styles, seems like it would fit the profile.

I suppose with all of the recent M&A activity for upscale brands, I'm kind of glad that they haven't forgotten about the lower end as well, and I agree it gives a strategy to focus on areas that normally wouldn't require a new hotel or nothing suitable for their current brands. Just find some local place that's willing to integrate, especially since they say there will not be any kind of consistency requirement (although I'm sure the elite benefits will make Ibis look like VIP service). Especially in places like Japan, where independent hotels are everywhere and most international chains only have expensive properties available (although at least Accor has some good Ibis options for budget travelers here).

I have just received possibly the most hateful marketing email ever, from Accor, about this new brand "greet" (above). Leaving aside that to "greet" in Scotland means to cry, it sounds like the most awful branding. And they could have got someone to proofread the copy before sending it; it's barely literate!

I have booked a Greet hotel (not to be mistaken with a great hotel) for the first time. Joking aside, I will be in Lyon and the Greet was the only one in my budget, with a modern feel and which look good on pictures. So I booked it and will report back in a couple of months once I stayed there. I think I have not seen any review or mini review for that brand.

Good Luck.

The one in France I staed in last summer was truly awful.

Not sure if it was by acident or design that the eggs came from the truly free range chickens in recption \!

The reviews on TripAdvisor are majority good, so either they were made from chicken lovers or the poultry does not roam free in the hotel :D