Every 31 seconds, a room is booked over the Internet In 2000, Accor recorded 12 million visits to its hotel websites (the accorhotels.com portal as well as the individual sites of its hotel networks: sofitel.com, novotel.com, mercure.com, coralia.com, thalassa.com, ibishotel.com, etaphotel.com, hotelformule1.com, motel6.com and redroof.com), representing an average of 32,000 visitors per day. The number of daily visits has jumped rapidly throughout the year, from 15,000 in the initial months to 38,000 by December 2000. Since the beginning this year, the number visits to these sites has greatly increased with 50,000 hits per day in January 2001.

In 2000, one million hotel nights were booked online around the world, or one night booked every 31 seconds.

Revenues booked through the hotel websites in 2000 totaled EUR 45 million (FRF 300 million), or 1% of total Accor hotel sales. In 2001, according to recent trends, web-based revenues should amount to EUR 100 million. 

Prime beneficiary - economy hotels 

In Europe, two-thirds of all internet-based reservations targeted the Group�s economy hotel chains, Ibis, Etap hotel and Formule 1.
The web-surfers favorite cities are Paris and London (Heathrow Airport), followed by the other major European metropolitan centers (Barcelona, Amsterdam...) and large French cities (Strasbourg, Lyon, Lille...). 

In the US, reservations for Motel 6 and Red Roof Inns on the internet represent 3% of total sales.Since January 2001, new services for even simpler, faster reservations To further enhance the attractiveness of the site and even better meet the needs of internet users, accorhotels.com has revamped its home page with a new graphic design highlighting the site�s four key access functions:

• �Discover� the Group�s brands, through short descriptions of their main characteristics,
• �Reserve� a room online and in real-time, with direct access to rates and availabilities,
• �Promotions�, including on the French site a hyperlink to accortravel.com, Accor weekend and leisure travel site,
• �Search� a hotel with new, faster and simpler destination map access.  

Once they have selected a hotel, customers may, with a single click,   access room reservation as well as the itinerary to the hotel.

An international communications plan to encourage traffic
The scheduled Spring 2001 launch of an advertising campaign available online and off-line is aimed at accelerating the development of internet-based reservations. This campaign will also be spread out through all Group hotels.

Recently signed partnerships (with Wanadoo/Voila/Lycos...) and the upcoming deployment of affiliation programs will also enable Accor to generate additional traffic and conquer new clients.

With 130,000 associates in 140 countries, Accor is the European leader and one of the world�s largest groups in travel, tourism and corporate services.