Sojern and Accor MEA Collaborate to Drive Recovery During COVID-19, Delivering a +20% Increase in Direct Booking Revenue

Working together for almost five years, Accor and Sojern shifted their marketing focus in July 2020 to a COVID-19 recovery campaign. Targeting a regional audience across MEA, they used Sojern’s data to inform campaign decisions, resulting in a positive ROI of 1.16X and a 20% increase in direct booking revenue.

Goal

Due to travel restrictions during the last few months of 2020, Accor needed to exclusively target regional travellers across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. Restrictions meant that travellers from key markets such as the UK, France, and Germany were not able to visit their MEA properties. With fewer leisure travellers, cabin crew, and business travellers, the focus had to shift to those looking for staycations and places to self isolate. This introduced the need for a more flexible and dynamic weekly strategy.

Solution

By being so adaptable and creative, Accor managed to refocus their resources to attract those regional travellers. Through well-timed competitions and inventive business diversification ideas like turning bedrooms and meeting facilities into ‘office spaces’, Accor successfully increased demand. On top of this, their flexible approach utilising Sojern’s insights and expertise to continually shift focus to new audiences resulted in an ROI of 1.16X, and drove a 20% increase in direct booking revenue. “In the few months of the campaign, I would say that Sojern is leading the way in terms of the booking numbers that we're getting,” said Branislav.