There is a particular kind of restlessness that comes with running one of the world’s largest hotel companies, and Sébastien Bazin wears it lightly.

He travels 250 days a year, spends roughly 100 nights at 35,000 feet, exercises for 45 minutes wherever he lands and, by his own admission, never closes the curtains. “I want to see when it’s dark,” he tells me. After more than a decade as chairman and chief executive of Accor, he has turned that perpetual motion into a management philosophy. The man does not sit still, and neither, it turns out, does his company.

When Bazin took the top job in 2013, Accor was a sprawling but conventional hotel group. Today it spans 48 brands across more than 110 countries, from the value-driven ibis to the rarefied air of Raffles and Orient Express. I sat down with him to talk about how the industry has changed on his watch, why he is betting big on India, and the audacious plan to build, in his words, “the best hotel ever built” and then float it around the Mediterranean.

From 11 brands to 48

Ask Bazin what has shifted most over his 13 years in charge and he reaches first for the idea of choice. “Accor has gone from 11 to 48 brands in my time,” he says. “We have listened to the market and offered more brand diversity. We’ve also entered territories where our competitors haven’t gone yet.”

The second great shift, he argues, is structural: the rise of the non-branded hotel. “Twenty years ago, the majority of demand was channelled through branded hotels, non-branded hotels were virtually unknown on any distribution channel.” The third is lifestyle, and here Bazin allows himself a rare flash of triumph. He is disarmingly frank about Accor’s historic habit of arriving late to a trend. “Accor has always been 20 years late to the party. We’ve been late on distribution, loyalty, so many things. But finally in this niche, lifestyle, we’re ahead of the game. We’re in the premier league now.”

That confidence is not misplaced. Through Ennismore, the lifestyle joint venture whose brands include The Hoxton, 25hours Hotels, Mama Shelter, Mondrian and SLS, Accor has positioned itself at the front of a category that barely existed when Bazin joined the board in 2005.

The business traveller has changed

The pandemic rearranged Accor’s customer base in ways that still shape its strategy. “Before Covid, Accor’s customers were 60% business, 40% leisure,” Bazin says. “Today it’s exactly the opposite.” Business travel has returned, he is keen to stress, but its character has altered. The thousand-person seminar is a rarer beast. “Business travel is back but has slowed down for large groups. Interestingly, no hotels with more than 600 rooms have been built in America in the past two years. We see a lot of small groups now.”

The brands he believes are best suited to this new world of “bleisure”, the blurring of business and leisure travel, are the dependable mid-market and premium workhorses: Novotel, Mercure, Mövenpick, Swissôtel and Pullman. Accor has been expanding precisely these names across its fastest-growing regions, as covered in our round-up of Accor’s new hotels and planned openings.

So what does the man at the top actually want from a hotel when the corporate diary sends him on the road? His answer is refreshingly unpretentious. “It needs to be buzzing,” he says. “It’s difficult to travel on business, you don’t want to end up in an empty place. You want to see people at the bar, at breakfast. It’s much more important than a spa.” He points again to Ennismore. “25hours, Mama Shelter and The Hoxton, they’re full of people during the day, and 80% are locals. The recipe for success is that mix between local and business travellers.”

And the rest? Bazin’s checklist is endearingly practical. “On top of this, you want cleanliness and water pressure. Eighty per cent of business travellers are going to order four things: pasta, pizza, burger and Caesar salad. Do those super well and you’re home free.” It is the sort of unglamorous truth you rarely hear from a luxury hotelier, and it explains a great deal about how Accor has scaled.

The floating palace

If the mid-market is about discipline, the top end is where Bazin lets his imagination run. Accor’s push into the ultra-luxury segment is built on a simple observation about scarcity. “Ultra-wealthy individuals, above US$2 billion, have enormous appetite to live, to enjoy and share with their families. But there’s a lack of product.”

He describes the annual migration of America’s ultra-rich along the Riviera with the precision of a man who has watched it closely. “They land privately at Nice Airport, spend two days at Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, two days at Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, two days in St Tropez, and two days in Capri. They pack, they unpack, they drive, unpack, pack, drive.” The inefficiency of it all clearly nags at him. “Why do we push customers to go to the product they like? Can we inverse it and bring the product to them?”

The answer is the Orient Express Corinthian, the 220-metre sailing yacht that Accor has billed as the largest in the world and which was formally named in Saint-Nazaire in April 2026 ahead of its maiden Mediterranean season. Bazin’s pitch to his own board was characteristically bold. “I told the board: I’m going to create the best hotel ever built outside of Nice Airport, the Orient Express Corinthian yacht. Travellers will have the best suite, the boat will dock in Monaco, St Tropez and Capri, and guests can invite friends onboard for a black tie dinner. It’s the same ritual, except you’re eliminating the constraint.”

The most intriguing element is social engineering. The vessel will operate on what Bazin calls a “club” model. “You’re not on the boat by accident,” he says. “It’s the team’s job to curate and select who’s going to be onboard. People don’t mix well unless they relate to another guest. How do the crypto guys cope with the Vanderbilt family of New York? We’ll learn by walking, but it will be interesting.” Asked whether it can actually be pulled off, he is unbothered by the uncertainty. “Can we do it? I have no idea. Should we do it? Yes.”

Why india will be a “smashing success”

If the yacht is the romance, India is the strategy. Bazin identifies three regions accounting for some 70% of Accor’s network expansion: the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. India towers above them. “The biggest opportunity by far is India, but this is also where you have the biggest complexity. I’m a big fan, and I go every five weeks. India will be a smashing success.”

The centrepiece is a tie-up with the low-cost carrier IndiGo, which Bazin notes holds the largest aircraft order from Airbus, with more than 500 new planes on the books. The partnership links IndiGo’s BluChip Rewards with Accor’s ALL loyalty programme, letting members earn and redeem points across flights, stays and experiences, part of a wider effort with InterGlobe to build one of India’s fastest-growing hospitality businesses. The infrastructure tailwind is striking. “India will have approximately 240 airports by 2030,” Bazin says. “These are perfect for Novotel and Mercure properties.” At the luxury end, the ambition is equally pointed, with Raffles and Sofitel Legend among the names heading to the country, as we reported when Accor brought its most prestigious brands to Rajasthan.

The loyalty machine

For all the talk of yachts and emerging markets, loyalty may be the quiet engine of Accor’s strategy, and Bazin speaks about it with evangelical enthusiasm. ALL (Accor Live Limitless) now counts 120 million members, adding 13 million a year, up from 7 million four years ago. “Loyalty is one of the biggest drivers for us in terms of direct bookings,” he says. “It’s a fabulous success.”

His guiding principle is frequency. “The value of a partnership is the frequency of usage, if you can use it on a daily or weekly basis then you win. You can’t be too picky on the partners, make sure you have common values, and they have a quality, affordable product, but the name of the game is the frequency of usage.” That logic explains a string of recent alliances, including a multi-market deal that lets members earn across rides and food deliveries, which we examined in detail when Accor and Uber forged their loyalty tie-up.

He is also quick to demolish a common assumption: that loyalty schemes and ultra-luxury do not mix. “People have the wrong perception that loyalty members aren’t the ones you want for ultra-luxury properties. This is rubbish. The ultra-rich get the loyalty system, they might not use it themselves, they may give it to employees or family members. But there’s pricing and value across all segments for Accor Live Limitless.”

Then there is Dis-loyalty, Ennismore’s deliberately contrarian membership scheme that rewards members for trying new venues rather than returning to old favourites. It very nearly did not survive. “It was a slow start, because it’s the reverse of a loyalty programme. Everyone at Accor said: kill it. I didn’t want to because it’s fun.” He sees the two as complementary rather than competing. “You can have double points with Dis-loyalty and ALL, it’s a break-even operation. I like the gimmick of it, and it’s fresh.”

The generation question

The one subject that visibly troubles Bazin is youth. The average Accor guest is around 48, and he is candid about the gap. “This is the toughest question for me. I’m not sure Accor is there yet with the 18-30 category. Do we address them properly? Do they know us?” Once again, Ennismore is the bridge. “Ennismore permits Accor to exist in the minds of those new generations,” he says, noting that the average guest age across those brands is 32, and younger still, around 26, among the people working in their public spaces.

He offers a neat illustration of how that ecosystem is cultivated. “At The Hoxton in London, we accept students working in the public spaces free of charge. The only thing we ask is that they leave the space from noon to 2pm, so those spaces can be used for lunch by paying customers. It’s an unwritten rule that works very well.” It is a small policy, but a telling one: a glimpse of a hotel group thinking less about room nights and more about belonging.

After 13 years, Bazin shows no sign of slowing, and certainly no inclination to close the curtains. “You need to be draconian on your discipline,” he says of the relentless schedule. “But I enjoy it, it’s fun.” Coming from a man planning to curate dinner parties for billionaires on the world’s largest sailing yacht while opening hotels next to 240 Indian airports, that may be the only believable answer.